History of Sol Cluster

This covers the history for the setting of Ar tonelico Qoga: Knell of Ar Ciel, Sol Cluster.

The First Era: The Development of Sound Science, and the Destruction of the World

In the Planet Ar Ciel, there once was a vast land with three regions known by the names of Sol Ciel, Metafalss and Sol Cluster prospered in this world, although among them, the region that serves as the setting for this game, Sol Cluster, boasted about its splendor, and it supposedly was called the center of the world. However, in a short time, all of the regions became hostile to each other, and Sol Cluster and Sol Ciel ended getting locked into a violent war.

Sol Ciel boasted about the overwhelming advantage they had thanks to their research in Sound Science, whose crystallization was the Symphonic Power Amplification Tower Ar tonelico, which possessed an incredible power. They finally defeated Sol Cluster and became the leads of the world. However, the world was completely destroyed due to an unprecedented great catastrophe known as the Grathnode Inferia.

Because of the great changes the world suffered due to the Grathnode Inferia, the historians refer to the period previous to it as the First Era.

West War with Sol Cluster

First, let us begin by telling the most important fact of all. The Third Tower currently in existence is a completely different facility from the Third Tower that was planned in Sol Ciel during year 3026 AD. While strictly speaking it exists as an extension of that previous project, the goals it had as a facility and the job the Tower had back then didn't have anything in common with the current Tower. Of course, the largest reason for this change is found in the incident we know as the Seven Bloodstains Incident, which brought an end to the West War with Sol Cluster.

The West War with Sol Cluster was a conflict that originated when the leader nation of Sol Ciel, El Elemia, tried to persuade their enemies, the Sol Cluster Alliance, to hand over one of their nations, Justine, to them. Upon learning of this, the leader nation of Sol Cluster, El Duel, declared war on El Elemia. In this way, the curtain to the West War with Sol Cluster opened.

From the very start, El Duel had the lead of the war, although in the final times of the conflict, El Elemia was in a pretty hard position, yet managed to devise a method through which they could send an attack from a point to other of the planet by using the crust as the transmission medium. The Sol Cluster Alliance had deployed a large number of chaffs (jamming sheets that would cause the radars to malfunction) in their airspace, which was done to jam the Symphonic Power of the invincible weapon that El Elemia possessed: [Ar tonelico]. This intra-land firing was intended only to be strong enough to serve more as a warning shot than an actual attack, but a tremendous miscalculation was made during it. As the Dynamic Waves that were fired advanced through the underground, they resonated with the internal convection of the planet's mantle, and their power was greatly amplified. The original plan was just to provoke a mid-scale earthquake in the area of Sol Cluster. However, as a result of the amplification, it caused an explosion of magma in an area that had thousands of kilometers of length, and ended being large enough to completely dry up one of the seas of our planet.

Due to this attack, the Sol Cluster Alliance lost four of its countries, one of these being the country of Justine that El Elemia had tried so hard to put under their own protection. And in this way, Sol Cluster lost the war due to sustaining such a great damage. El Duel lost its position as the leader of the world, and instead, El Elemia rose to take its place.

Due to this incident, which was called the Seven Bloodstains Incident by the future generations, all the possibilities that El Elemia had to continue working in the Third Tower Project disappeared at once. The exact reason for this was that El Elemia had made negotiations with Justine to build the Third Tower in their territory. This was because Justine was a very small country, located in a very strategic position, and El Elemia planned to suppress anything that disturbed the public order by constructing the Third Tower in this land.

However, Justine was annihilated due to the Seven Bloodstains Incident. And until the time in which the Ar Ciel Healing the Planet Project/Ar Ciel Aegis Alliance was brought up, which will be mentioned later, the Third Tower Project returned to being just drafts. Because of this is that the current Third Tower ended being completely different from the Tower that was planned in these times.

The Seven Bloodstains Incident

The reason why this disaster came to be known as the Seven Bloodstains Incident is because of the shape in which the land was left after it. The resonance of the land with the attack from El Elemia caused an enormous eruption of magma and magical sound power, which left seven enormous scars in that section of the world. In this occasion, the eruption of magma was so large, that its width alone covered several thousands of kilometers, and the area of the disaster was left with a very bizarre scenery, similar to various inverted icicles protruding out from the land.

However, when the world was completely destroyed later on by the Grathnode Inferia, these magma icicles ended becoming the dwelling for mankind. When the Third Tower was built in Sol Cluster, it was discovered that one of these ruins of the land was structured in a way that allowed to climb it. This one, and also the other icicles around it, are what form the area we currently know as the Great Fang. While Sol Ciel and Metafalss have completely lost their land, only Sol Cluster has a very small part of its lands, existing in the shape of the Great Fang, which protrudes high enough from the land to pierce through the Sea of Death.

The Demise of Planet Ar Ciel

Although the Seven Bloodstains Incident was the trigger that put an end to the war, the current situation didn't end there. Because of the influence of this attack, the core of the Planet Ar Ciel, which kept this world in existence, was partially cracked. Furthermore, the enormous eruption of magma, together with the effects this caused to the convection of the mantle, caused instabilities in the planet's magnetic field. From that point on, the world began steadily walking the path to its own destruction. First were the weather and climate, then many earthquakes frequently occurred; and finally, the local ozone layer disappeared, exposing everyone to the radiation. Furthermore, this wasn't limited only to Sol Cluster: similar incidents were happening all over throughout the world.

Seeing the gravity of the situation, and knowing they had to do something to turn back everything to normal, El Elemia began searching for methods that allowed to repair the core of the Planet Ar Ciel, and restore the cycles of the planet back to their normal states. Thus, in 3033 AD, just 2 years after the West War had ended, the [Ar Ciel Healing the Planet Project (AHPP)] was formed, and a large part of the national budget was destined to it.

So political frictions wouldn't happen within this organization, the government decided to form it as a nongovernment organization. While the Project had at its heart the engineers and corporate heads from El Elemia, it was a fortunate that it couldn't receive any support from the government, since many of the NGOs in around the world decided to join it. Of course, since El Elemia was the culprit behind the destruction of the planet, the fact it was an organization formed in that nation made it the target of many severe attacks from many nations around the world. On the other hand, however, given the current situation of the planet, the only nation that had the necessary knowledge, technicians and monetary resources for normalizing the planet was El Elemia itself. In a short time, the Project became to be greatly supported by scholars, and many organizations came to support it, having mainly the largest corporations in Sol Ciel playing the leading role in it.

Given the global level the Project had, even the countries of the defeated Sol Cluster Alliance gained approval for joining it, as well. Given that Sol Cluster contained a total of 48 countries, which together formed an associated state, once they became aware that they had to protect the planet, this greatly strengthened their nationalism. Although the scars from the West War with Sol Cluster were very deep, naturally, most of the countries in the alliance were decided to do whatever they could to repair their lands. That was even the case for the suzerain state of El Duel. El Duel was left with almost no power after the war, and had already lost any possibility of keeping its control over the countries that formed the Alliance. It was left in such an state that it was unable to even keep its own existence, and it slowly broke down until it completely vanished from the map.

El Duel was completely ruined, while the planet received a desperate amount of damage. From this point on, the Planet Ar Ciel began treading slowly on the road to its own demise.

AHPP

Armed with the overwhelming power of [Ar tonelico], El Elemia continually improved upon its own Wave Science during this time. In 3021 AD, previous to the West War with Sol Cluster, they made a project in conjunction with the region of Metafalss: [Project Metafalica]. This project was made with the great goals of putting an artificial satellite called Sol Marta in orbit above the skies of Metafalss, and with it, create the Second Tower, and then, the new continent of Metafalica. The very core of all this was the [Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop (Heart of the Land)], which was used as the model for Sol Marta's shape. In order to be able to understand this, an small part of the researchers that were dedicated to researching the truth of this world came around this time which a theory that stated that both the [world] and the [planet] had a Will of their own.

When the AHPP was launched in 3033 AD, it was decided that it would progress based from the theory that stated that the [Planet has a Will]. It was pretty much an incredibly ridiculous plan to anyone who had any measure of common sense. The most straightforward explanation that was given for the goals of the Project was the following: [We will converse with Ar Ciel to ask it a method to normalize it, and then, we will construct the way of making that method a reality].

As for the questions [Does this Planet even have a Will?] and [It's possible for the humans to converse with the Planet?], the answers for them didn't exist at the time as much more than hypothetical facts. The reason for this was that developing the researching machines and tools to prove them was extremely costly, and they needed a much larger budget to make them. However, when the Project was launched, El Elemia had given to them a large part of its national budget as an sponsor. Still, with the costs of the collaboration with Metafalss and the creation of Sol Marta, they managed to gather the support of many large corporations around the world, and working out these costs gave a sense of reality to everyone.

However, all of this wasn't enough to completely cover the research expenses of the project. Because of this, El Elemia decided to seek non-monetary ways of supporting the Project.

El Elemia then offered to the leads of the Project the very crystallization of the Wave Science of which Sol Ciel was so proud: a Triangular Nuclear Loop for the creation of a Reyvateil Origin, of which only two more had been developed. The Triangular Nuclear Loop that was given to the AHPP in this occasion was codenamed "TILIA (Tyria)".

Tyria's Birth

The Triangular Nuclear Loop that was given to the AHPP was cultivated without any problems, and Tyria came to life successfully. Unlike Shurelia and Frelia, Tyria's nurturing process was heavily rushed. There were many researchers terrified about if she would actually be born alive, but fortunately, she grew healthily.

It might sound sarcastic, but the greatest reason why the Tyria Project was so rushed fell on the many years that the [β Project] took to conclude. It in fact took so much time that the very first Pureblooded β-type Reyvateil was born in the same year as Tyria. Actually speaking, the Pureblooded β-type Reyvateils had results that exceeded by far the expectations that were put in them. Going by the external power level they exhibited, they displayed possessing a power that was around of a 95% of the Origins', and were thought to be almost perfect in every way possible (their internal power levels had infinite differences among each other, but were more or less the same when it came to functions), and there were great differences in their production costs, as well: with the budget necessary for creating a single Origin, a thousand Pureblooded β-types could be made.

Under this unfavorable scenario, Tyria was the subject of many severe criticisms. She was insulted as a parasite, and a tax money waste, among other things. Those who just knew her external specifications said opinions typical of amateurs, such as: [The AHPP would have been still completed if we had waited for a Pureblooded β-type] and [A β-type would have been more than enough], although of course, it was natural for them to come to such conclusions. However, if Tyria had not existed, the Project would have been meaningless. This is due to Tyria's Spiritual Frequency being set at a much deeper level than those of normal Reyvateils, because she was an essential part to the Project itself.

The Cosmospheres of the normal Origins, and the Pureblooded β-types as well, make use of Static H-Wave frequency band that starts at 2.0x10^4Hz and ends at 1.16x10^8Hz. This is the very same range in which the Spiritual Frequency of the humans exists, according to measures taken at the time, and this was because the minds of the Reyvateils were made by cloning the Soulspace Map of the humans. Under programming terms, while it's possible to access to wave bands located in much higher frequency levels, it's unknown what kind of effects that could have. The humans couldn't deduce this, and while for them making things like Reyvateils capable of accessing frequency bands higher than 1.16x10^8Hz should have been a terrifying thought, it actually ended being all the opposite.

Until some discoveries were made later on, the researchers of the time predicted that having the mind located in frequencies higher than 1.16x10^8Hz would have these effects: "Having surpassed by far the limits under which were born, it will be able of creating substances. And at a much higher level, it will be able of controlling the creation of life, and the structure of the cycle of life", or at least such things were thought. However, all of this was simple nonsense, because they were based in conjectures such as the Static H-Waves of Planet Ar Ciel being located in the 10^20Hz frequency range, which were taken from the actions of the Planet itself (creation of life, creation of circulatory systems, and such). Besides, there were still many unanswered questions about the Planet, such as if it would be structured by Static H-Waves, or if it would be structured by unknown kinds of waves (such a R-Waves and N-Waves). However, a single fact was visible to everyone. That "they would be able of conversing with existences of a level far higher than the humans or the life forms that lived above the Planet". Speaking in more typical terms, it would be possible to channel beings such as Gods or Demons.

Tyria, who was at the very center of all these researchers, was created with the setting of being "possibly" able of accessing to Static H-Wave Frequencies above 1.16x10^8Hz, because she was the Reyvateil that was created to [converse with the Planet]. If there wasn't a being capable of conversing with the Planet as equals, this AHPP would have been created without any meaning.

The Reyvateil Origins

When TILIA was supplied to the AHPP, the first Origin, "EOLIA", and the second one, "FRELIA", had already existed with a human-like shape for a few years. EOLIA was in the Wings of Horus of Sol Ciel, and FRELIA was in the middle of undergoing a clinical study in the land of Metafalss. However, TILIA still existed as a Triangular Nuclear Loop in these times.

Well, among the Reyvateil Origins; the first one, EOLIA, was by far the oldest, since her development started in 2940 with the launching of the [Reyvateil Project]. And FRELIA was created at the time in which [Project Metafalica] was launched in 3021. She was at the time a theoretically complete Reyvateil that had the merit of being sent over to Metafalss to conclude the negotiations between both regions, and was cultivated abroad for a clinical study, and for the Sol Marta Project (a project that aimed to create matter through the use of Dynamic D-Waves).

And finally, in this point at time, it was decided that the projects of creating new Reyvateil Origins would be terminated. There were three reasons that led to this decision: the first one was from pressure from the public finance, because of the alarming budget increase their production had created.

The second reason was because a theory that allowed to cultivate Reyvateil at a low cost (the β Theory) was established at the same time that EOLIA became operative, and around this time, these Reyvateils had already passed their field tests successfully. Finally, the third reason was because; at the time, there weren't any successful examples of Origins that were completely flawless, which was the main reason behind the third of the planned Origins lacking any concrete goals when she was created.

It was at this time that TILIA's special features surfaced. TILIA's cultivation period started late to the previous Reyvateils, and furthermore, it was shortened in excess. As mentioned above, each one of the three Origins required serious reasons for them to be created. The main reason for her being given to the Project was because it approached a crisis shortly after it was launched, and due to the situation being so atypical, the government had to support the Project in some way.

As a result, TILIA was used in various ways, at times set up in ways that would either simplify her functions, or specialize her in others, and was born after being cultivated for just the very short time of a year. Her final goal ended being [created to make a reality the possibility of conversing with the Planet], very different from the other Origins, and was cultivated without even considering conditions like her operational lifetime.

MODULE HARVESTASHA

Tyria's Soulspace Map was now becoming an extremely special thing. Since she is able of accessing frequencies beyond the 1.16x10^8Hz range, various cruel experiments were planned for her. However, the one that everyone considered the most dangerous was one field test in which one of the steps was checking how much of an influence she could exert over a Pureblooded β-type Reyvateil. The Reyvateils have their Individual Consciousness Area up to the 1.16x10^8Hz range, and from there upwards, they have their Shared Consciousness Area. In that area, there aren't any walls that separate an individual's mind from others, so it's a space in which all of the Wills of the people could be fused into one (in other words, they would be converted into a six dimensional model). Normally, Reyvateils aren't capable of knowing or feeling anything from this area. This is because the humans made this area under the Reyvateils' unconscious domains to make them easier to control. For example, if they sent them a feeling like "I want to eat jelly bread", all of the Reyvateils would suddenly start wanting to eat jelly bread at the same time, and would run to the nearest store to do so. However, the research on the applications and methods for using the Shared Consciousness Area was still very shallow at this point in time.

Tyria's special characteristic was that she was able of consciously and directly acting over these unknown regions. However, the researchers considered this as a serious threat. Due to this, Tyria wasn't allowed to have her Soulspace registered into the First Tower of Ar tonelico, and instead, her Triangular Nuclear Loop was created by constructing a unique Binary Field for her inside an isolated server. In other words, Tyria has never used the First Tower as her Song Magic Server, not even before she was born. This also means that the server inside which her Binary Field was constructed ended being a Server that was exclusively made for her.

That Server ended being called [Harvestasha]. Harvestasha is one of the characters from a very famous myth that has been told since very ancient times in the region of Sol Ciel. We could say that the intentions her creators had for this name was due to the same reason for which many systems and machines are named with mythological names in our planet in the current times, such as [Melchior] or [Venus]. Harvestasha was known within her myths as a Goddess [who could cause miracles with the power of her feelings], which caused her to be handed down as Goddess since ancient times. She is pretty much comparable to the Legends of Rhaplanca that are told in the region of Metafalss. Due to the great number of unknown powers that Tyria has, the engineers overlapped the image of the Legend of Harvestasha over her, and entrusted her with the many feelings contained in the legend.

Harvestasha is pretty much a Server that was equipped with a self-maintenance mechanism. This means that the functions that guardian robots and maintenance droids have, like Meimei in the First Tower, or Raki in the Sol Marta; are all included within the functions of the Server itself. She is pretty much a [Server endowed with a will]. This was something that no one ever considered when the First Tower or Sol Marta first began their development. This was because, while the AI systems were still in the development phase back then, it wasn't possible to determine how secure it would be to implement a system capable of thinking and controlling by itself into a Tower that carried such an immense power. However, with the passing of time, both science and technology reached the point for this to happen, and the scientists concluded that such a system would be possible to implement. And thus it was how Tyria's Server ended becoming the very first model of Server equipped with an artificial intelligence system capable of thinking and taking decisions by itself.

The Third Tower Project

When the AHPP received Tyria, they were given the task of attempting to construct a Third Tower that was similar to the First Tower of Ar tonelico that was in Sol Ciel, and converse with the Planet by using Tyria, to complete the Planet Regeneration Project.

First, they decided the place over which the Third Tower would be built. The chosen place was the site of one of the Seven Bloodstains: to be more precise, in the same place where the small kingdom of Justine was, the same country that El Elemia had requested to put under its protection. The grade of devastation the land had was brutal: the cracks left by this ran all the way between the Planet's crust and the Planetary Core without interruptions. In other words, the theoretical Diving Point (the point where it would be possible to physically contact Ar Ciel's H-Waves, according to the theories) was the Planetary Core itself, where it would be the easiest place to convey feelings to the Planet.

The ones that proposed this place originally were a research team formed by Wave Scientists and Reyvateils from the El Elemia government. The AHPP received the proposal, and then, they proceeded to buy all of the dead land and its surroundings off the hands of the Sol Cluster Alliance. Then, it was decided the Third Tower would be built in a point where the Planet's surface rose in a very strange way. This place was given an alternate name: the [Six Fangs] of the [Seven Bloodstains]. Ironically, that place was where El Elemia had originally planned to build the Third Tower during the West War, and now, it was going to be built in the same place, but for an entirely different purpose.

Thus, the construction of the Third Tower had begun. However, due to the functions the Third Tower would have to accomplish, it was treated with an endless level of harshness. Even though the engineers had their hands already full just trying to figure out all of Tyria's special capabilities. And to make matters worse, the construction time that was allowed for the Third Tower was an abnormally short span of time. This was because, according to the analysis performed by specialists, Ar Ciel was year by year losing its power to continue maintaining the Planet due to having its Core partially cracked, and the final conclusions they extracted from this were that [there are high probabilities that in five years, it will become an inhospitable environment for the humans].

According to the theories of the time, the fastest method for building the Tower was the experiment that was planned to be performed by Frelia over at the region of Metafalss: [creating matter through the emission of Dynamic D-Waves from an artificial satellite]. However, it was reported to the AHPP that, according to calculations, Sol Marta would need a total of six years to complete the Tower through this method. To begin with, it was said that it would take this much time due to it being structured under the [Metafalss Note] dialect. None of the current projects or construction methods had what the AHPP needed to complete this project in such a short time, and they were in the verge of being cancelled.

There is any other method, different from every other we have seen, that could we use to complete the Third Tower before the Planet is destroyed? The development team of the AHPP spent day and night researching and questioning which method they could use to build the Third Tower in such a short time. And it was during this difficult mission that there was a man called Kurogane, having the most important position, and carrying the most important responsibilities in the project. His name was recorded down in history as a mad scientist, and he was the kind of genius that only appeared once in a century.

Tyria and Kurogane

Strictly speaking, Kurogane originally even wasn't one of the members of the AHPP. He was just the main responsible behind the design and planning of Tyria's Nuclear Triangular Loop. Later on, when the building site for the Third Tower was proposed, he became one of the staff members of a research site for that purpose, which was under the direct control of the El Elemia government. This was due that the only kind of support the El Elemia government could offer was dispatching voluntary workers as help, since they couldn't give any sort of financial help.

While Kurogane was an excellent researcher, he was an extremely problematic man as a person: the main fact about him was that he never considered the Triangular Nuclear Loop he himself had designed, neither Tyria when she was born from it; as more than a mere experimental subject. Because of that, he always treated her very cruelly, and without any shade of mercy. However, on the other hand, there wasn't no one who loved Tyria more, but as an experiment. Since Tyria was born, and even until a few years after the Grathnode Inferia that came later on, she spent around ten years at Kurogane's side. During that time frame, Kurogane "raised" Tyria normally, so that's why Tyria never disobeyed him.

Whenever results of the experiments were extremely out of the theoretical values he had established, Kurogane mercilessly reprimanded Tyria. He trained Tyria continually, even when she was scared or crying, just to bring the results closer to these theoretical values. And whenever they finally managed to reach the theoretical values, he gave to Tyria the highest praises he could. Tyria wanted to be praised, and didn't want to be scared anymore, so she endured the experiments every day, so Kurogane would always recognize her value. This made Kurogane both a symbol of fear and hatred to Tyria. However, there was another side to this, since she had great trust placed on Kurogane, and whenever he praised her, Tyria felt an emotion that was very similar to ecstasy, although she didn't understand these feelings yet.

While he was being truer to his personality when he treated Tyria harsher than normal, Kurogane had a much clearer plan in mind to this. The Third Tower Project was completely being wagered on Tyria's [possibilities], because Tyria was the only existence in the world whose Soulspace had a wave frequency depth that broke the limit for living beings. However, no matter how much he experimented on her, the inspection results on her Soulspace didn't show any differences between Tyria and a normal Reyvateil. Kurogane had clearly understood what was the reason behind this: to cause an active movement of the Dynamic H-Waves located in high frequencies (in the deepest layers of the Soulspace), it would be necessary an emotional stimulus that was equally strong. Once pure and strong feelings had appeared in her Soulspace, the differences between Tyria's Soulspace and that of a normal Reyvateil would become apparent. That is everything that Kurogane wanted to accomplish. Speaking realistically, however, it wouldn't be such an easy task moving her heart to such a level. Kurogane made many efforts on this, but they all were in vain, since he never managed to make this [miracle] happen, and the time continued its relentless passing.

The Relationship Between Kurogane and the Pureblooded β-types

Because of Tyria, the β-Project ended becoming the largest bump in the road to the Third Tower Project. This project was established as an extension system to the α-Project (the creation of the Reyvateil Origins), which would allow to create clones of the Origins in large quantities at a low price. The Reyvateils that were created under this method are called [Pureblooded β-types]. While the Pureblooded β-types could never match the absolute powers the Origins hold, they were highly expected due to surpassing the Origins in the number of everyday capabilities and applications they had, not to mention that they were also made with the highest quality possible.

On 3031 AD, with the completed form of the first experimental α-Reyvateil, in other words, with EOLIA's completion, the β-Project progressed dramatically. The very first Pureblooded β-type was completed in Sol Ciel in year 3033 AD, and in the short time of four years, the mass production of β-types was initiated in year 3037 AD. By the way, the Reyvateils born from a human and a Pureblooded β-type are called Third Generations, and they formed the great majority of the Reyvateil populations of Sol Ciel and Metafalss from the Third Era onwards.

Kurogane also was one of the members of the β-Project, which by then had begun to be implemented by El Elemia. Strictly speaking, Kurogane was part of the β-Project Staff, but given that how badly he treated and insulted the other members of the staff, he was transferred over to his current Tyria Project. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that his bad attitude was the cause for this transfer.

Kurogane was the chief physician during his days as member of the β-Project, and among other things, he was a specialist on reproductive organs. He actually continually proposed to implement reproductive organs on the Reyvateils, and never accepted a negative answer to this. As a result, when Kurogane finally was forced to resign from the β-Project, his plans to implement the reproductive organs into the Pureblooded β-types were already finished, and ready to be carried out. And thus we come to our current days.

Why was he so obsessed with adding the reproductive organs to the Reyvateils? This clearly ended becoming quite a story when he moved over to the Third Tower, but the only clue to his intentions in this matter was something that was found in a research thesis he wrote during his student days. This was a thesis titled: [Evolution of the Humans Through a Recombination of the H-Wave Algorithms]. This ended becoming later on the draft for the Human Evolution Project, which would have large repercussions in the future generations.

Kurogane's Theories

Kurogane was an authentic genius. However, he also received another name during the time he was employed by the El Elemia government: [The Reaper of Sound Science]. This was due to him being extremely antagonistic to the theories the Father of Sound Science had proposed, which served as the basis for modern Wave Science, but despite this, Kurogane's antagonism was also the main cause for the brilliant breakthroughs he made. Kurogane's theories and viewpoint were scowled by many, but being a genius that could be considered as an equal to the Father of Sound Science, he was called by that name with a mix of respect and sarcasm.

The main theory the Father of Sound Science had established was that [The Feelings of Happiness have an strength that Negative Feelings cannot surpass]. This sentence became famous enough for it to be necessary to be written at the beginning of all the books he had written, and in practical terms, Wave Science continued growing and expanding while they treasured these [Righteous Feelings]. However, Kurogane repudiated that theory.

Kurogane's theory proposed the following: [The feelings that have the highest level of amplification at the moment of a shock have a strength that surpasses by much the one created by righteous feelings]. In other words, he was proposing that negative feelings, such as the death of a parent, the shock from a betrayal, or an imminent danger to one's own life, could bring forth a much greater power. This was due to these situations creating a direct access to the survival instinct of the person suffering from them, which would would make these feelings straighter than any others, with minimal energy loses. It goes without saying that all of the theories created by Kurogane were on this same level of extreme wretchedness.

While Kurogane actually went to the extreme of saying that it was natural for birds to fall off from the sky before learning to fly, Tyria's training and raising was becoming quite a difficult task. This was because Tyria lacked too much when it came to [factual matters]. For example, normal Reyvateils and humans have a sudden spike in their Dynamic H-Waves when [someone dies], whose height is proportional to how strongly attached they were to that [someone]. However, Tyria didn't have anything or anyone to which she was attached. Because of her feelings being so diluted, Tyria's heart had a very shallow attachment to everything, so to shake her heart it would be necessary to give her an strong feeling of [being in extreme danger]. Once she sensed the danger, she would emit extremely powerful Dynamic H-Waves, whose strength would be proportional to how terrified she was of death. Because of this, the experiments that Kurogane performed on Tyria were endlessly harsh and cruel.

However, Tyria still didn't know what was the true meaning of [dying]. Her heart was still in a total [calm] state. Her H-Waves remained constantly flat, which meant that her mental status didn't have any sort of changes. This was why Kurogane treated Tyria horribly, despite loving her the deepest than anyone else. He did this because if her emotions kept going back and forth between both extremes, it would be much more effective, and in that way he would also collect the research data he needed.

However, the research on Tyria didn't give off any results. The final consequences of this were that despite working on this for three long years, the spectrum measurements that Kurogane routinely made never detected any Dynamic H-Waves that crossed the 10^8Hz threshold. And then, the time limit he had for this experiment came to its end. That was the final cause for the decision that Kurogane feared the most.

The Third Tower Project is Suspended

What Kurogane feared more than his experiments not showing any results, was the suspension of the construction project for the Third Tower. Then, on 3036 AD, the decision to suspend the project was taken. Strictly speaking, it wasn't suspended, but transferred over to other area. The duty that the Third Tower was planned to accomplish in the project was then transferred to the Second Tower, which was at the moment under construction in the distant region of Metafalss.

This was more of an internal decision taken by the AHPP, so external people to the project, such as Kurogane, who actually worked for the government, didn't have any right to overturn it. There were two reasons why the AHPP ended taking these decisions, aside of the strong pressure that the El Elemia government was exerting over them.

The first reason was that it now was far more realistic leaving this task to the Second Tower in Metafalss, controlled by Sol Marta, than trying to build the Third Tower in the terrain in which it was planned. At this point in time, the construction of Sol Marta was already in a very advanced state, and it was anticipated that the main systems for the satellite would be completed during the next year.

As for the second reason, it was because Tyria didn't display any actual differences from the abilities the other Origins had. In other words, if there wasn't any visible difference between their abilities, it would be a more reasonable conclusion to trust more in the alternative that looks the most reliable. In other words, this means that the project leaders decided that it was better continue working with Frelia, who already had exhibited an extremely high rate of reliance and stability, and had been in operation since some time ago; instead of Tyria, with all the unknown instabilities she still had.

Due to the sudden turn of events, the project began to undergo a series of great changes. Now Sol Marta and the Second Tower would be placed under the conjunct administration of El Elemia, Metafalss and the AHPP; and furthermore, Sol Marta would have a drastic reduction of its functions. The construction time was shortened by seven years, and many large renovations were made on it. And to coincide with the changes in the goals and schedule, naturally, the shape of the Second Tower (the blueprints) was modified as well.

Frelia was originally supposed to be the basis for the land of [Metafalica] that the people of Metafalss wished for so much, and she was the Origin that was sent to this region to create the Second Tower. However, due to the policy changes made in the AHPP, she began to create a Tower that didn't have anything to do with its original goals, without Frelia knowing anything about this. The final results of this were that while Frelia ended sleeping for over 700 years and the Second Tower fell into a long silence in an incomplete form, and even if it had been completed, the Second Tower would have ended with completely different functions than the ones it originally was supposed to have.

The new mission that was imposed on the Second Tower was the same goal the Third Tower was originally supposed to have: [To converse with the Planet, and Dive into its Soulspace]. Because of that, a special Dive Machine was built in this Tower for that purpose.

Completion of the Tower of Origin

Kurogane became greatly indignant when he learned about the project being transferred over to the Second Tower, but he also uttered that the lack of results from the experiments on Tyria were because he was unable of using a great level of power on her. From that moment on, he continually sent to the AHPP many reports containing results and predictions on the project, while continually appealing to them to resume the Third Tower project. Finally, the AHPP was outlasted due to the number of times he appealed to them, and just for formalities, they approved the resuming of the construction on the Third Tower.

Kurogane was relieved, but the AHPP just approved this to [sweep away a burden], given that the budget they destined for this purpose was just a meager hundredth of the original budget the Third Tower construction project had. And furthermore, Kurogane was ordered to move to the Six Fangs. In few words, he was [degraded]. Now that Frelia had been assigned to the job of building the Tower, Tyria didn't have a place in the project anymore.

And with this history behind, Kurogane finally set foot on Sol Cluster in year 3037 AD. He brought with him Tyria and the few remaining researchers that supported him, and they began building the Third Tower by themselves.

Even after all this, Kurogane continued attaching himself to the idea of accomplishing the goal of conversing of the Planet, and in addition, to making the Project a success. No matter who asked him about it, he always replied that there was no possibility of the Project being a success without Tyria. Kurogane himself was who designed Tyria's Nuclear Triangular Loop as the sole messiah that would save the world. With these strong feelings on his heart, Kurogane completely dedicated to his research. Because there was no possibility of constructing the Tower with the meager budget he was given, he ended building an small floating station, and gave it the same name as the Tower of Origin that once stood in Sol Ciel, in an attempt to imitate how the First Tower was built. It was externally known as the Kurogane Laboratories, and became the base of operations for his research team.

The Grathnode Inferia

A year after the Tower of Origin was completed, spies sent by El Duel managed to silence Ar tonelico, also causing the disaster known as the Grathnode Inferia in Sol Ciel. The destruction of a Symphonic Power energy line made the energy amplifiers run without control, making the Tower release enormous energy quantities uncontrollably. As a consequence, that powerful energy destroyed the Planet's surface and weather system, turning the land into the [Sea of Death], and the Blastline was formed by the plasma that was released into the skies. This was a devastating blow to El Elemia, which completely changed the state of affairs around the world.

The Truth About the Second Tower

The Second Tower Project was originally a project for creating the Second Tower and Metafalica, done by transferring over Frelia to the region of Metafalss in exchange for the kind of Hymmnos that was handed down in this region: the Metafalss Note. The Second Tower that later on became the heart of the land of Metafalss would be a control terminal for the continent. And with this blessed exchange, the continent would finally be created. However, the creation of the continent of Metafalica doubled as well as an experiment on the Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loops made by Sol Ciel.

At the time, Metafalss didn't have any knowledge on the Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop, but Sage Jaza discovered about them when reading confidential documents through the connections between Sol Marta and El Elemia, making this region the one with the most details on them (however, the methods for creating them weren't recorded here, and Maiden Infel would have to arrive to the theory for this by herself many years later).

The reason why Metafalss became the leading edge on research was because the Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loops were still considered as first-class confidential information material during the First Era. Due to this, the information on them was protected by the strongest security available at the time, but all of the information that Sol Ciel had about them was lost during the Grathnode Inferia. Still, given that Sol Marta was planned to become the center of the AHPP, it became the best place to obtain information on them.

However, the Second Tower project, which was planned to become the center of the friendship between Sol Ciel and Metafalss, was given a drastic course change once the Third Tower project was suspended: the Second Tower had become the trump card for the salvation of the world. While it was originally planned to make it similar to the First Tower, the Second Tower was still in the middle of its construction, circumstance which the members of the AHPP used to demand to make it much more specialized. Because of this, while the original Second Tower was planned to be constructed as a semipermanent one, it ended becoming a provisional Tower that would draw its energy from the resources of the First Tower, for a certain time. Thus it was how the construction time for Sol Marta was reduced by seven years, and began to be used before parts of its functions had been implemented.

The Second Era: The Creation of the Third Tower and the Times of Confrontation

While Sol Ciel received a devastating damage from the Grathnode Inferia, it was thought that the Sol Cluster of the time didn't receive any serious influence from that. However, that thought vanished after a certain time had passed.

In this era, Kurogane had become the main person behind everything that happened in Sol Cluster. At the start of the Second Era, he killed himself and the Third Tower was created, making all the projects in which he was involved take a great leap forward. On the other hand, the society of this world deteriorated due to the opposition to the Kurogane Laboratories and the resistance towards its despotic ways of ruling, so this was an era in which large wars happened very frequently.

The Stolen Conversation Project

In year 3040 AD, which was the same year in which the Grathnode Inferia occurred, there was an event that was particularly regretful to Kurogane. His research, [The Conversation with Ar Ciel through the Reyvateils], was published by the AHPP Academic Society, but they left his name out from the publication. In that same year, Kurogane had gone to the AHPP carrying the results of his research to request for more funds for the development of the Third Tower. At that time, the Academic Society rejected his results. In other words, they stole his research. At that time, the success of the Second Tower project was a life-or-death matter to the AHPP, so they stole all of the budget they were assigned just for the Second Tower. This was the main reason why Kurogane didn't have any sort of popularity.

The Ayatane Necrofamily and the Grathnode Inferia

While in Sol Ciel the AHPP was desperately trying to make the Second Tower Project as fast as they could, El Duel, which had disgraced itself in the West War, was doing everything it could to find counter-measures to Ar tonelico. While this happened, the Ayatane Necrofamily was moving in the shadows. The [Necrofamilies] are the race known as Teru over at Sol Ciel, which have supernatural powers that have transcended the human knowledge. While they generally don't have contact with the humans, due to the destruction of Justine in the [Seven Bloodstains Incident], they lost a large part of their community with it.

Originally, the Necrofamilies had made many warnings about the technological over-development of the humans, but these warnings were ignored, causing the Seven Bloodstains and killing countless Necrofamilies with it. This made Ar tonelico into the main target of the Necrofamilies' rage, which called it a demonic weapon that would even destroy the entire Planet.

El Duel and the Necrofamilies then began waging war on Ar tonelico. Among the main participants on this, these were the Ayatane (Munoph), Kajou (Plune), Kengya (Jemina) and Homuragi (Nino) Families, although a few other clans took part in this, as well. The Necrofamilies infiltrated into the Tower and silenced it from its core, which was what ended causing the Grathnode Inferia. This was the cause of death for all the members of the Necrofamily Construction Corps that were sent to Sol Ciel, which were part of the ones that had participated in the war, and only a few of them, which stayed behind in El Duel, survived. These survivors were the ones who commanded and gave the war strategies to the others: the Ayatane Necrofamily, which has the power of [Prediction].

In other words, they used the Terus that knew everything about the construction of Ar tonelico. Ar tonelico was originally intended to be used only with peaceful goals, which was the only reason why the Teru decided to lend the humans a hand, making it the very first collaborative work between them. However, Ar tonelico ended being used for war shortly later, and from that time on, they denied having any kind of relation with it. Also, after the Grathnode Inferia, they decided to cut off any kind of contact with the humans in Sol Ciel.

The Anti-AHPP Organization

The Planet Regeneration Project the AHPP tried to make a reality was a project that would benefit not only mankind, but also the entire Planet itself. However, not everyone supported it, especially in the region of Sol Cluster, where there were a great number of protests against it. While one reason was because the leaders of the AHPP were from Sol Ciel, which were considered as enemies, they also saw interfering with the Planetary Core as an extreme project, and looked at it with anxiety.

Even among these opposing factions, the most active one was the organization called Anti-AHPP. What this organization saw as a danger was the small research facility that was constructed in the ground zero of the Seven Bloodstains Incident. In other words, the Tower of Origin that Kurogane had built. The fact that the AHPP had built a research facility in the harshest place in this world gave birth to a great number of suspicions. And to make matters worse, the Anti-AHPP became much more active because the AHPP staff leaders leaked an information that said that [The goal of that facility is shooting a bullet into the Planet], and had also sent spies to the Tower of Origin to pry intelligence from the workers, and to provoke disruptive activities in there.

Despite all the damage this provoked to the Tower of Origin, Kurogane was unable to procure any support from the AHPP. They had decided that as long as the world paid attention to the Third Tower, it would be very hard for the Second Tower to become a target of the opposing factions.

Kurogane was already extremely discouraged due to the results of his research being stolen, but once he learned about the subversive activities done by the Anti-AHPP, he got greatly shocked. Despite having crossed over many difficulties, even going as far as trying to implement the Project himself, he didn't receive any credit for it. He didn't have even any money to continue with his research. The Planet Conversation Project had become insignificant to him. And then, when he was the most exhausted, he received the urgent news about the Grathnode Inferia. He thought this was the retribution they deserved when he heard about the First Tower being destroyed and Sol Ciel having been completely blown up. However, when he later on understood how grave the damage was, even he panicked. At this rate, even this place would be covered by the Sea of Death in less than ten years.

The Attempt to Assassinate Tyria, and Kusunoki Masakado

Due to the Grathnode Inferia, the First Tower was silenced, and Sol Ciel, due to being in the ground zero of the catastrophe, was completely destroyed. The survivors to the catastrophe were in complete despair. It might sound sarcastic, but the AHPP staff that got degraded were narrowly saved from death. Practically speaking, the AHPP organization was annihilated at this time. However, that only happened to the administrative mother cell that was located in Sol Ciel. Unlike the Second Tower, which depended on the First Tower, the Third Tower was disconnected from the mother cell, which allowed it to receive an insignificant amount of damage.

However, the Anti-AHPP intensified its activities up to radical levels after the catastrophe. The worst example of this was the attempt to assassinate Tyria, which happened on 3041 AD. This murder attempt wasn't done outdoors: it was actually done when Tyria was on break time, inside of the Laboratories' own installations. Fortunately, Tyria managed to come out safely of it, but once the Kurogane Laboratories saw the seriousness of the situation, it was decided that the security all around the place would be strengthened, beginning with a background check for all of the people that belonged to the Laboratories. A rigid bodyguard system was laid all around the Tower of Origin to guard and escort Tyria. Among them, there was a young man called Kusunoki Masakado.

At that time, Kusunoki was 18 years old. He was an extremely calm boy, almost to the point of being emotionless. Also, due to his lack of emotions it was that got appointed as the leader for an small expeditionary platoon that participated in the West War between Sol Ciel and Sol Cluster, despite being so young. If it was necessary, Kusunoki wouldn't falter at all when it came to eliminating hindrances and intruders. Also, he also had a mind cold as ice, and had never opened his heart to anyone. He was one of the people that Kurogane valued the most, and while being cold, he was also glad that Kusunoki was so well-mannered. Kusunoki also was the kind of person that could kill others with just a smile.

Kurogane recruited him from the Sol Ciel army, and gave him the role of Tyria's childhood friend, and also, her personal bodyguard. From that moment on, he mostly spent his everyday life at Tyria's side during a few years. During that time, he always repelled all of the assassins that tried attacking them, but despite this, he never managed to gain Tyria's favor. Naturally, this meant that Kurogane didn't make a mistake on choosing him. And thus, Tyria continued with her life without any great incidents.

Anti-AHPP and Pro-AHPP

However, these days of peace didn't last much longer. A certain day, after the Grathnode Inferia, a cell of the original AHPP, which managed to escape alive from Sol Ciel, came to see Kurogane. The same ones that had proposed to concentrate the resources of the project into the Second Tower using the results of the research on Tyria and the Third Tower. However, Kurogane's project ended being inappropriate to the situation, since the place where the Second Tower was planned to be built was above a hard bedrock. Also, Kurogane still remembered the unpleasant feelings that the acts of the AHPP had brought him due to concentrating the resources in the Second Tower just for their own interests of gaining recognition among the world, instead of having invested them in the Third Tower as he thought they would have. Thus, the negotiations ended in failure.

From this point on, that cell, now known as Pro-AHPP, began taking more drastic measures. First, they bought the Anti-AHPP organization using the money they brought with them from Sol Ciel, and began planning to steal Tyria from Kurogane through the use of brute force.

Although Kurogane accepted the fact of the resources of the AHPP being concentrated into the Second Tower, it was meaningless to him. For executing the Planet Regeneration Project, it would be necessary to have a facility that produced enormous quantities of energy for it, which due to the effects of the Grathnode Inferia, didn't exist anymore in this world. Currently, while the First Tower of Ar tonelico hadn't been completely silenced, the uncontrollable Symphonic Power it emitted was still swirling around the world. If that power could have been used and controlled, the environment wouldn't have ended destroyed to such an extent. Because of that, Sol Marta, which also depended on the power from the First Tower, was left without any practical applications. There wasn't any other way left to continue with the Planet Regeneration Project aside of the Third Tower that Kurogane was still building.

And besides, the Anti-AHPP had gained an unexpectedly large amount of power. At this time, the members of the Anti-AHPP had gathered a large number of members, each one having different kinds of feelings. The original members lived to [exterminate demonic technologies], but once they were acquired by the Pro-AHPP, their goals changed to [wanting to kidnap Tyria]. Finally, when they learned about the [Tower Transformation] that Tyria would undergo, their feelings became [we love Tyria]. So their common goal ended becoming to prevent Tyria from becoming the Tower, and capture her while she still was in human form.

Once he learned about the plan to kidnap Tyria, Kurogane got enraged beyond any other thing that had happened until now. Even now, the Pro-AHPP was now attempting to take Tyria away, which he took as a terrible offense. He would never give over Tyria to these guys. He would never allow them to use Tyria in any way.

To Kurogane, Tyria was his masterpiece, the experiment that he prized beyond even his own life. He wanted her to bloom as a flower before the eyes of all the people in this world, as the results of the research he once made, before anyone else stole her. He was the only one who had the research reach this point, and he would lead the Planet Regeneration Project to its success. He would never hand it over to any other people. With this flood of emotions on his heart, he continued with the preparations to transform Tyria into the Tower.

The End of the Planet Regeneration Project

Once Kurogane learned of the plans of the Anti-AHPP, he switched over all of the systems of the Third Tower to [Plan B], which ended being a project in which he had worked in secret during many years: the [Human Evolution Project]. The core of this project consisted of using the logic for Tyria's Tower transformation to transform the physical structure of the humans into something that could survive in the Sea of Death. However the main components of the Sea of Death hadn't been completely clarified at the time, so it naturally was a theory filled with flaws. Despite this, Kurogane still had his reasons to attempt executing this. He was terrified when he saw the course that the Planet was taking. He fell in despair from seeing the world being contaminated with these stupid humans, for which even the Planet Regeneration Project was being used just for their own benefit and to gain political power. The Plan B was merely a trap to the humans, which he left to that rotting world.

Thus, if the Planet Regeneration Project was going to meet its end, Kurogane decided that he would drop down the curtains on it with his own hands. If he handed it to other people, and Tyria ended getting killed in vain or something, it would mean that the project would have ended in a much more pitiful way. So he thought that in the moment in which Tyria would become the Tower, he would create a wound in her heart by using himself as the cause, completely breaking Tyria's personality and burying her off together with any possibilities of completely creating the Tower.

Once her feelings and senses had crossed a specific threshold, Tyria would be unable of singing anything further. However, Kurogane had already realized by then what would be needed to trigger such an emotional outburst. If Tyria really had any love for him, he would be able of unleashing her true power.

On year 3047 AD, the project finally began to be executed. Tyria began singing the execution program that would create the Tower, EXEC_REBIRTHIA=PROTOCOL/.. And when the song reached its climax, Kurgoane aimed a gun to his forehead, and pulled the trigger. He didn't falter at all in sacrificing his own life in the name of his research. While this created an explosive feeling within Tyria's mind, her transformation into the Tower had already begun and she was rendered motionless. She wanted to save her beloved Kurogane, and as the time passed and she became the Tower, her mind was inundated by an unbearable sadness. Then, the song turned into a bunch of static noise. When an event unbearable to the mind of a person occurs, the person ends losing all of the memories related to that event as a protection for his or her own mind. This was what happened to Tyria, making her lose all of the memories of that event, together with the parts of the Song she had still to sing... together with the Song that was supposed to save this world.

Kurogane handled this by making delicate arrangements up to the completion of his plan. He could predict everything from Tyria's mental state to her actions based on all the observations he made on her, and thought that the best way to make sure that the project would never be carried out was with his own death. To him, even his own body was no more than another part of what he needed to make his research a success. He was so obsessed with it that he lost sight of the proper course for his life.

The Two Harvestashas

The one that was assigned to perform the most important functions in the Planet Regeneration Project was the Tower's Mainframe: Harvestasha. Harvestasha's system kernel was based on the existence of the [Goal Algorithms], which could be programmed into her, and thanks to her artificial intelligence, she would be able of considering and setting the best course of actions to achieve the goals the algorithm contained. By the way, the most important Goal Algorithm for the realization of the Planet Regeneration Project was the [Main-Field Program]. However, this program was never installed into her, until around 700 years after its development. The reason for this was that Rebirthia Protocol was executed incompletely.

The Song that Tyria sang, Rebirthia Protocol, is similar to Metafalica in the fact that it's an Hymmnos Extract made to accomplish several functions upon being executed. These functions are listed below:

1) Transforming Tyria into the Tower, according to the blueprints that were programmed into her.

2) Create a copy of Harvestasha.

3) Execute the Goal Algorithm [Main-Field Program].

Because Tyria's Song got broken up in the middle, the third function never got to be completed, but the first and second ones did get realized. Because of that, there ended being two Harvestasha Mainframes: the XP Edition, and the VISTA Edition. Due to the nature of the Planet Regeneration Project, it was necessary to give different Goal Algorithms to these two Mainframes. XP would head to the Planetary Core, provide the support for conversing with the Planet, control the XP Shell, and execute the necessary processes to transform it into the new Core that would regenerate the Planet. On the other hand, VISTA would control the entire Tower and the firing of the XP Shell, and once the XP Shell and XP Edition had become the new Planetary Core, she would be bestowed complete control over the Tower.

In other words, the Tower was made lacking some of its essential functions, but there were still some other essential components for the project missing. The main problem was that the theory about the Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loops was still impossible to clarify. While the Kurogane Laboratories continued doing the best they could to research the Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loops, they were setback by the loss of their budget, and having their technological documents stolen. However, given that Kurogane had already detached himself from the Planet Regeneration Project, he only made Tyria sing Rebirthia Protocol to make a reality her transformation into the Tower. After his death, the Laboratories continued their work, but they never managed to create a Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop.

Kurogane had already understood the importance that the Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loops would have prior to Tyria's Tower transformation. Because of that, the AHPP had equipped Harvestasha with the [Pre-Field Program] Goal Algorithm, so she would be preprogrammed with the importance of them. It's because of this that XP Edition could ask Mir a long time ago if she had any idea of where to find the Tesseractal Nuclear Loops. It was because of this memory that Mir entrusted Cocona with the Heart of the Land (Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop).

Harvestasha and Mir

The strongest Reyvateil in history of Sol Ciel, Mir, and Harvestasha, who existed in the faraway region of Sol Cluster. Both of them encountered each other a long time ago.

We wouldn't be exaggerating if we said that their encounter was directly related to Ayatane Michitaka having come to the First Tower in year 3408 AD. At this year, Mir, who was still an experimental subject imprisoned in a laboratory, met Ayatane Michitaka, who had infiltrated in the laboratory in which she was held. It was at this time that she heard from Ayatane Michitaka about the plans the Reyvateils in Sol Cluster had. The thought of a paradise only for Reyvateils was something that strongly charmed her heart.

Later on, Mir caused a large rebellion, and was sealed away inside the Tower, spending more than 300 years in complete isolation. There, she began seeking clues to the words that Ayatane Michitaka told her, and tried accessing to all the databases she could find. It was only at this time that she managed to establish contact with the Third Tower.

There is an extremely weak (wireless) Symphonic Power line connecting the Third and First Towers, which can only be used for communication. The transmission capacity it has is too weak, so it can be only be used as a substitute to direct verbal communication, and it was the only way of contact between both regions due to the cold reception the Third Tower has towards visitors. Naturally, as this communication facility was never seen as important in the First Tower, it was quickly buried away by history after the Grathnode Inferia.

Harvestasha was the one who answered Mir's call. She told Mir about the Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop being the only thing that could save the Planet. Mir was unable to communicate with any of Ayatane's family members, but the fact that there was technology of a scale large enough to affect the Planet greatly fascinated her. When she heard about this, she immediately related it to the land she yearned for so much: Metafalss and its utopia of Metafalica. Although her dreams of coexisting with the humans were no more than fleeting dreams now, this resuscitated these dreams for a short while.

However, given how Mir was still imprisoned by her own hatred of humans at the moment, she believed that it would be necessary to regenerate the Planet and exterminate the humans, and told Harvestasha that she would find a Selfstabilizing Tesseracatal Nuclear only to make her paradise of Reyvateilia a reality.

After that, Harvestasha and Mir ended talking for quite a while about many topics. Harvestasha told her stories about the times of the Grathnode Inferia and about the Planet Regeneration Project; and Mir also got from these conversations a hint for a way of escaping from her imprisonment, which was the existence of EXEC_LINKER/.. Mir gave to Kyle Clancy the information about Linker, and chose him to possess his body. This was the way in which Mir became a menace to Sol Ciel once again.

The Reyvateil Rebellion

After Tyria transformed into the Tower, the Reyvateils from the Tower of Origin started a rebellion because of being treated like tools.

Taking advantage of the opportunity given to them due to the death of Kurogane, who exploited them the most; and Tyria's transformation into the Tower, which was a support to their hearts thanks to her charisma, they made all of their dissatisfaction explode. They initiated a strike, and halted many of the systems that kept the Tower of Origin working. At the same time this happened, a man called Reston was appointed as Kurogane's successor as the Chairman of the Kurogane Laboratories. However, the methods that Reston used were so heartless that he ended being passed down in history as the greatest source of evil in Sol Cluster.

On a certain occasion, the Kurogane Laboratories were attacked by a rebel army, which was mostly composed of extremist Reyvateils. In response to this attack, Reston initiated a forceful formatting of the areas that belonged to the SH Server, without any hesitations. In other words, he deleted the data that structured the Cosmospheres of the Reyvateils. This event didn't affect only the Reyvateils that formed part of the rebel army: this also dragged in the more moderate Reyvateils that didn't belong to it, making it an intentional genocide. This event caused the deepening of a trench between the humans and Reyvateils, and made the Reyvateils greatly despise the humans. However, since interfering with the SH Server would be a lethal act to the Reyvateils, the rebel armies calmed down. Thus, the Reyvateils submitted themselves to the humans once again.

Six years after the genocide, a large-scale human rights movement was initiated. However, it was around this time that the poison from the Sea of Death began covering the lower areas of the Tower, and many refugees from the Cluster people came day after day to seek shelter in the Tower. In response to this, the Kurogane Laboratories made them work to death, which only enlarged further the support to the human rights movement. Finally, the human rights movement became a terrorist party due to not receiving any response from the Kurogane Laboratories, and Reston was murdered by radical Reyvateils. Another man called Crudele was appointed as Reston's successor, and despite lacking the same level of decisiveness and leadership qualities of his predecessor, he helped to keep the humans on their feet despite their numerical inferiority.

The War Between the Kurogane Laboratories and the Great Fang

The frictions between the humans and Reyvateils only increased with the passing of years, and it turned bad enough that a war between them seemed inevitable. The situation in the world became equally distressed, although the fact that they simply lacked the energy and resources to start a war may have been the only consolation in this sadness.

And while there were enough problems already at this time, other difficult problem soon descended over the Tower: not being enough with being unable to bury away the antagonism of the Reyvateils, the Clusterians began having conflicts with the inhabitants of the Third Tower (which were Cielans).

Around this time, the surface was made already into an inhospitable due to the Sea of Death making impossible to breath, and all of the escaping Clusterians ended gathering in the Third Tower. This continued to the point in which they had to build refugee camps around the Tower, in the Six Fangs. Their goal was entering the Third Tower, which was considered the safest place remaining in the world. However, the Third Tower was protected by Cielans, led by the Kurogane Laboratories, who put a limit on how many outsiders could enter the Tower. When they started this practice, they originally allowed a great number of people to enter, but they had to stop it after a time or otherwise, they would exceed the Tower's capacity to shelter people. Since there wouldn't be enough resources for all that people, and this would cause them all to die, this made the Laboratories to stop accepting Clusterians inside the Tower.

However, the Clusterians replied that the ones that originally invited them were the Cielans, and insisted that the main reason for the existence of the Tower's research facilities was to save the victims of the tragedy. And in parallel to this problem, several skirmishes occurred throughout the region during various years, which finally escalated into a full-blown conflict in 3084 AD.

The Clusterians assaulted the Tower using gigantic airships. While this attack was so abrupt that it threw into chaos all of the people in the Tower, the Kurogane Laboratories and the Reyvateils made a temporal armistice due to it, since this time they had common interests to fight this war, and combined their forces to expel the Clusterians. And in this way, a grand war was started between the Kurogane Laboratories and the Clusterians.

The Kurogane Laboratories decided to mass-produce Reyvateils in order to quickly end this conflict. They were completed after a few months, and thanks to the great difference in the war potential between both sides, the Kurogane Laboratories overwhelmingly won the war. Due to their defeat, the Clusterians were forced to withdraw from the Tower, back to the harsh and steep cliffs were the refugee camps were originally set. Since these camps later on formed communities that came to be called together as the [Great Fang], this war was called by future generations as "The War Between the Kurogane Laboratories and the Great Fang".

While the Kurogane Laboratories managed to attain an overwhelming victory in this war, the mass-production of Reyvateils they made to end to conflict sooner caused a grand collapse in the balance of power between the Reyvateils and the Laboratories. While both of them saw the war with the people of the Great Fang was won thanks to their union, once the war concluded, they returned to their former relationship. However, their power relationship was turned 180 degrees around. Due to the mass-production of the Reyvateils, the difference of power between them and the Laboratories was so great, that the Laboratories didn't have any chance of victory against them.

The Foundation of Clustania

Due to the war, the number of Reyvateils produced was so large that they overloaded the capacity of the Tower of Origin, and had to be relocated to the Third Tower. Once there, they suddenly invaded the Tower, establishing near the Tyria Head area, and began forming an strong military power. And in this way, the organization we know as the Autonomous State of [Clustania] was founded by the Reyvateils.

The one that initiated these activities was a general that commanded the Reyvateils during the Great Fang War, called Clustceres. She was a Pureblooded β-type Reyvateil that was designed as a commander by the Kurogane Laboratories for the Great Fang War, and was endowed with an overwhelming charisma and leadership power. However, this was the opposite side of having bestowed these qualities to her.

The Kurogane Laboratories fiercely opposed this, which started other conflict between both sides. While each individual Reyvateil had a very low fighting power, they had deployed a dispersed guerrilla warfare in the inner sections of the Tower, which drew out the war for a long time. Furthermore, the Laboratories was also having other problems because the people of the Great Fang were using this as their chance to invade the Tower. And once the problems of the Laboratories became large enough to make them collapse, Clustceres initiated negotiations with them. She told them that if the Laboratories recognized Clustania as an independent government, they would help them to expel the people of the Great Fang from the Tower.

The Kurogane Laboratories accepted these conditions, and Clustania was founded as an independent government. Then, they established a treaty in which Clustania would semipermanently keep the Great Fang outside of the Tower. However, the SH Server that serves as the Reyvateils' lifeline could still only be administrated by the Kurogane Laboratories, making this their only actual weakness. Then, they added to the conditions of the treaty that the Laboratories couldn't use their administration over the Tower to force the Server to be completely shut down.

By the way, there also was a certain episode that reinforces Clustceres' leadership qualities. After the war, there was one time in which the Chairman of the Kurogane Laboratories at the time, Weiss, threatened her in this way: "If we ultimately shut down the SH Server, you all would die", during one of their many negotiations. Then, Clustceres answered the following: "Then, do it if you can. In fact, if you are so inclined to do it, why don't you try doing so right now? If you can keep the SH Server off during two hours, we will go back to following your orders".

Actually, it's impossible to keep the SH Server off during two hours. This wasn't known a long time ago, but the increase in the Reyvateil population also increased the quantity of Symphonic Power that was supplied to the Tower, which was what made the Symphonic Power quantity that the Tower could use fly off the charts. Clustceres calculated the time limit the Reyvateils could survive without the SH Server, and convinced she had the right answer, she waged everything on the two hours setting. This is because the longest time the SH Server can be in standby awaiting for a reply (PING) from a Reyvateil is two hours. If the PING isn't returned in within these two hours, the SH Server will sever the connection between itself and that specific Reyvateil, killing her. If the SH Server had actually been kept off during more than two hours, all of the Reyvateils in the Tower would die.

After Clustania won this bet, the Kurogane Laboratories agreed to allow the Reyvateils to participate in the routinely SH Server inspections. This was done as a preventive measure by the Reyvateils so the humans wouldn't attempt to do anything to the SH Server, now or later on.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration that this is the beginning of the Clustania regime, which went on all the way to the current year: 3774 AD. However, their goals and motives have completely changed from the beginning, which is the reason for the great differences between that old regime and the tyrannical rule of the current times. That tyrannical rule was actually established during the Third Era.

The Plan to Increase the Symphonic Power through Moocheriel

After Kurogane committed suicide, the Kurogane Laboratories at the time perceived that [Tyria's transformation into the Tower was successful]. Since Kurogane was the only one who made everything of the transformation, and never told anyone the specifics of it, it was thought this was the case, because Tyria's Tower seemed to be almost the same as it was supposed to be in its successful form. However, the growth of the Tower had slowed down so much that the researchers had to begin looking for ways to remedy this. The Tower finally stopped its growth in 3061 AD. The completion rate was only about a 44% at the time, and due to the gradual decrease in the growth speed, the researchers officially initiated a project to make a new energy source for the Tower. This was [The Plan to Increase the Symphonic Power through Moocheriel].

The facility known as Moocheriel was originally built to create a Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop, and was actually planned to be the next phase to be started immediately after Tyria had transformed into the Tower. This phase finally ended being executed after being delayed for 15 years.

At the time, there was still no established way to reliably create a Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop. Due to this, the project was remade to create one through the ranking up of a Reyvateil's Triangular Nuclear Loop, which was the most dangerous method for doing so. Then, the created Tesseractal Loop would be offered to the Wills of the Planet, with Tyria serving as an interpreter between the humans and the Planet's Consensus.

However, this project was filled with inconsistencies. Moocheriel was originally created to be an object that consumed great quantities of energy, but ended becoming the exact opposite of it: this Moocheriel actually siphoned energy from the Planet to create itself. Then, it uses the energy taken from the Planet to create the Heart of the Land and finish the construction of the Third Tower; which shows how messed up the directors of the plan had their priorities.

Now that they had repelled the people of the Great Fang, and were bound to Clustania by a non-aggression pact, the Kurogane Laboratories finally could continue with the implementation of the Moocheriel Project. Since the Laboratories still were unaware of Kurogane's true intentions, they earnestly strove for the realization of the Planet Regeneration Project.

Since Tyria's Tower transformation hadn't reached the Moocheriel stage yet, they had to build it from zero, using Parameno Crystals so it could absorb Dynamic H-Waves, and attempt gathering the Symphonic Power they needed to complete both Tyria's Tower transformation and Moocheriel itself. However, this project also had an Hymmnos that would execute its functions, and they needed a singer to sing it. Although that Hymmnos, EXEC_SEED/., existed from the start of the project, they had to modify it to accomplish its new functions. Then, a singer for this Song was born in the Kurogane Laboratories: a Reyvateil by the name of [Mihoshi].

Due to her great importance, Mihoshi was grown in a prime field specialized to give her an [obedient] personality, which all of the Reyvateils from Clustania completely criticized. Although the criticisms were unfounded, Clustania marked this due to Mihoshi's excessively obedient nature could have been caused by the suppression of her mind. However, when it came to the Moocheriel Project itself, no one voiced any protests against the Third Tower being completed. Everyone was holding the same feelings when it came to the planet's regeneration.

The Antibody Threat

Then, the time for completing Moocheriel finally came. Mihoshi began singing EXEC_SEED/., but the effects that this Song brought forth were quite a shock to the Reyvateils. The Triangular Nuclear Loop that held Mihoshi's soul was destroyed, and reconfigured into a Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop. At the same time, due to the absorption of her Dynamic H-Waves commencing, Tyria's Tower transformation continued at an extremely rapid pace, and Moocheriel approached to its almost complete form. However, it stopped at just an inch of being completed. Then, everything fell silent, to the point that if you asked anyone, they would have told you that [everything completely stopped, so much like it seemed as if an illusion was covering us]. Even the wind, even the water, even the Sea of Death... all of the world was enshrouded by a terrifying silence.

However, that only lasted for a few moments. Then, the Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop into which Mihoshi was transformed began spouting a countless number of [black animals]. This was the moment in which the [Antibodies] were born. The Antibodies behaved like a menace: whenever they found life, they would instantly annihilate it. And also, they travelled in packs large enough to attack entire cities, which caused damage larges enough to completely destroy the city in which the Kurogane Laboratories were originally located.

However, we could say that there was an small mercy: while it was thought that the Antibodies that were born when they first appeared were infinite, they actually only were born for a short span of time. However, once they stopped appearing, Mihoshi's Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop had completely disappeared.

This absurd number of Antibodies that appeared in such a short time continued behaving themselves like menaces for a long time. The Kurogane Laboratories, Clustania, and the people of the Great Fang only could defend themselves the best they could, so there was no time to pin up anyone as the culprit of this disaster. When the Antibodies appeared, the people of the Great Fang hid themselves using the complicated network of volcanic tunnels that was in the region, and continued their lives in the underground. On the other hand, the Reyvateils of Clustania hid within facilities located inside of the Tower, like the Tyria Head or the Lymph Ducts. However, the Kurogane Laboratories were the ones that received the worst consequences from this disaster: they lived inside the Tower of Origin and there weren't any other cities or places to which they could escape. Due to this, the Kurogane Laboratories were essentially annihilated, and all the projects they had related to the Third Tower and the Planet Regeneration Project were annihilated with them. Thus, the Planet Regeneration Project became a lost technology at this point in time.

The Establishment of the Archia Association

Due to the Antibody eruption, the state of this world was completely changed. The people of the Grand Fang mastered techniques to survive in the underground for many years, and rooted their new settlements around the enormous underground lakes. This subterranean way of life ended becoming later on the ancestor to the gigantic underground community we currently known as Eternus.

The Tower of Origin was destroyed, and more than half of the staff from the Kurogane Laboratories was killed. One part of the survivors went on to live in the underground as well, while other discovered a place in the cliffs where it was possible to live: a plot of land from which the Tower of Origin was visible. So they settled down, and built a city there, which was called the [Ciela Gate (Jouteimon)] by the future generations.

At this time, the person that became the central existence for this city was Archia Charen. He later on became the founder of the Archia Think Tank, but he originally was the Project Supervision Advisor of the Kurogane Laboratories. He later on formed a group that sought to reactivate the Tower of Origin, mainly composed by volunteers he gathered, and ended calling it the [Archia Association]. While the Tower of Origin was mostly destroyed, since most of the facilities that provided it with Symphonic Power were still intact, the Archia association embarked on the task of rebuilding the facility.

However, a shocking event happened a few years after this. Clustania decided that they would expel all the humans that had ran away to the Tower from it. The only exception were the ones that were working at the Tower of Origin, which would be put under their surveillance. They were allowed to go to the Great Fang, but crossing to the Tower was forbidden, without any exceptions. And from this time onwards, Clustania began its excessive interventionism over the human organizations. To Clustania, the Grathnode Inferia and the Moocheriel Disaster were both caused by the actions of the humans, so they couldn't be trusted anymore.

They even went as far as interfering with the details on the investigations of the Kurogane Laboratories, and executed a plan to abolish their current conditions. This plan consisted in disconnecting the PING lines that connected Harvestasha XP and Harvestasha VISTA. Normally, these two Frames have strengthened security due to both of them inspecting each other to prevent potential failures. However, if the PING lines are disconnected, the communication between both will be interrupted, which will cause the Tower of Origin to be recognized as "silenced". It was due to this that Clustania became more lenient when it came to the surveillance of the Tower of Origin, while the core members of the Archia Association remained in the depths of the Tower of Origin, having received a research environment about which the Clustanians wouldn't be worried.

Establishment of the Government of Clustania

After that, the Kurogane Laboratories fell off from the front stage of history, and kept themselves hidden. Now that the Tower of Origin was silenced, Harvestasha VISTA, located in the Tyria Head, became the Mainframe that essentially controlled all of the world (although actually XP transferred to VISTA all of her Tower administration functions after she was created, so this wasn't an special change at all). And then, Clustania began with their fear politics.

They ended spreading a tyrannical rule that didn't have any sort of mercy to the humans. This didn't spring from a simple greed for power: this actually was because the Reyvateils were taking in account the present level of destruction that had begun with this region and ended covering the entire Planet. The Reyvateils many times repeated that the humans were too foolish to be allowed to govern, and thought that they would never be able of avoiding to be a danger to the Planet.

The ones that spurred this kind of thoughts in the Reyvateils were no other than the Necrofamilies (Terus). The Necrofamilies felt that the humans should be destroyed, and that the Reyvateils were essential to the regeneration of this world. Because of that, when the Reyvateils started their rebellion, the Necrofamilies supported the rebel armies from the shadows.

Now that the Kurogane Laboratories had been completely silenced, there weren't any threats to the Reyvateils. Then the Necrofamilies, taking advantage of the situation, began implementing measures to completely rule over the humans. Among the many that were established around this time, the most representative of them, which even now have horrible reputations, are the ones of the [Control Names (True Names)] and [Cleansing].

When these measures were decided to be implemented, the humans waged war on Clustania once again. However, now the humans had lost the Kurogane Laboratories, they were completely defeated due to the lack of their technologies. The leaders of the humans were sent to the Slave District, and were the victims of the first Cleansing in history. At the same time, all of the humans were forced to have a Control Name. In this way, while Clustania had a rule that governed with absolute power, there always was a Necrofamily pulling the strings from the shadows.

By the way, this also was the time in which the Necrofamilies thought that Clustania needed a leader that also served as an unifying force, and manufactured an individual set as [Occupation: Empress] to have this role. The name of that first empress was Emphasis. Emphasis governed as the sole supreme being, but she also ended being the only empress in history.

Establishment of the Archia Think Tank

Although Clustania had already begun their fear politics, they still continued protecting the Kurogane Laboratories for as long as they kept silent. On the surface, the Laboratories' staff seemed to follow Clustania's orders exactly as they were told, even going as far as voluntarily registering their own Control Names. Since they wanted to remain as inconspicuous as possible, they obeyed all the orders they received, and continued with their projects in a way that didn't anger the Clustanians.

Then, 11 years after Clustania had instated the Control Name system, the time to carry out their actions finally came. Archia Charen's group went to Clustania, and applied for the permission to establish a new organization called the [Archia Think Tank]. While this petition was initially rejected, this was the same exact kind of reply that Archia Charen had expected. However, he expected to be able to settle this peacefully by just continuing with the application process. So although this application was rejected, Archia began with his activities. After this, many of the Clustanian Reyvateils began suddenly dying, and this repeated many times.

This was a project that Archia Charen had established in absolute secrecy: a system that used Harvestasha XP to perform maintenance (manipulation of data) on the SH Server. This was a project that no one aside of the staff of the Kurogane Laboratories knew, and it remained in secrecy during a very long time. This unbelievable situation caused a complete change on the behavior of Clustania's government. Then, the Clustanians came to the Tower of Origin, which was located inside the Parie Governorate and treated as a restricted area; and approved making the Archia Think Tank became into the administrators for it.

The reason why Archia Charen's group had to take these drastic measures was because of the same exact reasons that Clustceres had to make that bet with the Kurogane Laboratories. However, this time that decision was taken by the other party, since they weren't capable of continuing with Kurogane's research under the severe restrictions that the Reyvateils put over them. Despite this, if they destroyed the SH Server, and exterminated the Reyvateils by doing this, all of the Tower would have ended falling apart. It was on their best interest that the humans regained the administration of the SH Server, and the balance scale tipped on their favor once again. Also, given that the Reyvateils had thrived so much, there wasn't any need to continue using the Symphonic Power-generating facilities of the Tower of Origin to provide energy.

Archia Charen tried to make this situation as advantageous as possible to himself, and modified the conditions they would put on the Custanians. These conditions were actually pretty simple. Starting from that day, and irrevocably, the Archia Think Tank would have complete control over an administrative area of 1000 Stons (around 3 Km) of diameter around the Tower of Origin. Likewise, Clustania would be unable to interfere with anything that happened within this 1000 Ston special administrative area. Clustania accepted these conditions, and while they continued calling it the Parie Governorate, the actual government of this area was surrendered to the Archia Association.

Now that the Archia Association and the Kurogane Laboratories had gained their independence, they were fused and reborn as the [Archia Think Tank]. The only goal the Archia Think Tank has was succeeding Kurogane's will, and carrying out a certain project. That certain project wasn't the Planet Regeneration Project, but the Human Evolution Project. That was the other project that Kurogane developed in secret while he still worked on the Planet Regeneration Project. The current project chief for this was Archia Charen himself. At the time, the Human Evolution Project was known by the codename [Plan B], and most of the researchers in the Laboratories didn't even know about its existence. It was kept in such a high level of secrecy that not even the researchers of the Archia Think Tank knew about it until Archia Charen explained all the details on it himself.

The Difficult Journey of the Human Evolution Project

While the Human Evolution Project finally came into the light after the Archia Think Tank was founded, everything seemed that it would still need a very long time to be executed. This was because the way in which Kurogane had planned the project, which required large quantities of Reyvateil genes. At this time, the Third Generations didn't exist yet, and marriage between humans and Reyvateils wasn't anything else than a bad joke to most people. However, Kurogane saw a large potential in the crossbreeding between both races from the time in which the first Reyvateils were made. In the First Era, when he still was part of the β-Project, he was the only one among the researchers that was obsessed with giving reproductive organs to the Reyvateils. That was because he considered these would have been beneficial materials for the evolution of mankind. While Kurogane couldn't predict that something like the Grathnode Inferia would happen at that time, in a short time he started believing that the humans would need to adapt to their environment to survive. He thought that if the Planet wasn't regenerated, the Reyvateils would become the ones that would save the people. He grasped that the key to this would become the [Reyvateil Genes].

The Reyvateils are beings capable of completely controlling the humans. In short, the basis of Kurogane's research was this: if they, who can manipulate the environment, are crossbred with the humans, which still have many unknown kinds of logic, it would become far simple to instantly rewrite the genes of their descendants. This would mean that the so-called Third Generations, or half-Reyvateils, are actually the outcomes he imagined from his research. However, while it could be said that Kurogane essentially was the creator of the Third Generations, he could also be called the culprit of them dying young. Because of these difficulties is that the current Third Generations became as we know now. Since their short life spans are due to malfunctions in the LEM, most likely Kurogane could have developed a way of correcting this problem.

Well then, while the Third Generations are beings that should be called [Evolved Humans], the evolved humans that Kurogane had in mind at the time of his death were actually much more active. The evolved humans he imagined would have undergone a metamorphosis to make their bodies adapt in the most optimum way to the current conditions of the Planet. And then, the SH Server of the Third Tower was designed to allow the possibility of rewriting the areas that govern the physical form of the Reyvateils. While it's unknown at the moment if this way of designing it was intentional or not, it's certain that Kurogane himself was the designer of this SH Server.

In this way, we can see that implementing the crossbreeding between humans and Reyvateils, and the Reyvateil genes spreading throughout the population were both essential components to the Human Evolution Project. And even if we think about it in that way, Archia Charen was completely incapable of executing this project during his lifetime. This was because he based his research on two pillars: [The Spreading of Reyvateil Genes], and the [Establishment of an Evolved Form], and his generation only worked in making the project simply enough so it could be executed by just flipping a switch.

The Clustanian Depression

While the Archia Think Tank now had its independence guaranteed, and received a position in which they could continue researching freely, no one saw any changes on the surface. They could have gained the supremacy in Sol Cluster if they wished, but that kind of thought never crossed their minds. The only ideals the Archia Think Tank had were making the world balanced once again.

The environment was very favorable to them, since Clustania still kept the Great Fang in check, and they themselves avoided standing out as much as they could. While the Archia Think Tank essentially held the lives of everyone in Clustania in their hands, if Clustania ever managed to interfere that shield and attacked Archia with all their might, the situation would become extremely hard to solve. If Clustania actually decided to take this kind of action, all of the staff in the Think Tank was literally prepared to die, and would continue inside the Think Tank until it was completely destroyed. This was decided so not all of the precious Pureblooded β-types would be eliminated. Of course, if that ever happened, Archia's research would have been for nothing, and would disappear in the mists of history.

And thanks to this weird form of balance, the world enjoyed a brief period of peace. Since the Archia Think Tank started operations in 3170 AD, they focused on the development and marketing of products for the people, and even made achievements such as the development of the Dive Machines, which made it grow into a large corporation. However, on the other hand, they also had begun experiments in extreme secrecy. These experiments themselves were based on one of the research pillars established by Archia Charen: [The Establishment of an Evolved Form].

Around 3190 AD, an strange disease began wreaking havoc in Clustania. According to reports, the Reyvateils would suddenly complain about feeling ill, and then would suffer from a extremely high fever, to finally end turning into water and dying. Also, some of the affected had changes in random parts of their bodies, which confirmed it being an extremely weird disease. While the Emphasis Regime had guessed that this disease was caused by the Archia Think Tank, they couldn't perform a deeper investigation due to the lack of evidence. Actually, this disease didn't affect a large number of Reyvateils: it affected around 2 or 3 Reyvateils per year, so because of it being pretty much an isolated incident, no information about it was disclosed to the public. Furthermore, normal Reyvateils weren't even aware about the SH Server being in possession of the Archia Think Tank, so this was a decision taken by the Clustanian executive staff to avoid giving unnecessary anxiety to their citizens.

The ones that reacted the most fiercely to this, and actively sought evidence to frame the Think Tank weren't the Reyvateils themselves, but the Necrofamilies. While their population had greatly dwindled due to the continuous wars, a small number of Necrofamilies still remained in this era. At the time, Clustania's population had a Reyvateil-Necrofamily ratio of approximately 8-2.

The Necrofamilies had concluded that the cause of the mysterious disease was the Archia Think Tank, and immediately proposed the Clustanian executive staff to revoke their business permissions and completely destroy their installations. However, the Emphasis Regime rejected these proposals because they wanted to avoid straining the relationships between Archia and Clustania due to the Think Tank having possession of the SH Server.The proposal went unheard, and presuming that Clustania wasn't interested in acting against the humans, the Necrofamilies marched to the Archia Think Tank by themselves.

When the Necrofamilies arrived at the Think Tank, it all seemed very quiet on the surface. This ended making them decide that they didn't have any reason to say the disease was caused by the Think Tank's influence. As much as the Necrofamilies wished to annihilate the humans, that was because of what they expected for the future of this world, and wished that the humans wouldn't destroy it more than how it was.

Because of that, the Necrofamilies decided to solve this problem by discussing it with the Think tank. They said that "the strange disease that had appeared among a few Reyvateils recently most likely happened because something had happened to the SH Server areas related to them. Since you are the administrators of the Server, we would like to request a diagnosis to be made on these areas". However, they also added something more. "And in case you are unable to determine the cause, we will use our powers against our will, and discover that cause by ourselves". That was quite a firm speech, done by the same Necrofamilies that were the perpetrators of the Grathnode Inferia.

In order to avoid causing large uproars, the Archia Think Tank ended accepting this request in secret. However, a few years later they announced a much more shocking project.

The Era of the Mass Production of β-types

On 3210, a man named Dian was appointed as the second Chairman of the Archia Think Tank, and right as he assumed his new position, he announced a shocking project: that the Archia Think Tank would make a new SH Server, and mass-produce Pureblooded β-types for it. This announcement of a new Server was just a bluff made because everyone in the world knew that Harvestasha XP was silenced.

This of course had the goal of realizing one of the research themes the Think Tank had: the [Spreading of the Reyvateil Genes]. Furthermore, in case humans and Reyvateils had married in a few years after this, Dian established the Archia City, allowed them to move there, and even supported them financially in raising their children. This new system provoked large waves in the world: the Clustanians strongly criticized this as the Archians not seeing the Reyvateils as living persons, while the people of the Great Fang reacted in varied ways, the women having the most intense reactions to this. When the system finally began to implemented, naturally, the crossbreed marriages were still in an unfavorable position in comparison to the marriages between fellow humans. However, due to the poverty in which the people of the Great Fang were forced to live, they waged everything on the plan of buying a cheap Reyvateil, having their children with her, and then moving together to Archia to settle as a family. This trend slowly escalated to the point in which the morale of the people turned into this: when a boy was born, he was considered as a precious treasure, while when a girl was born, she was considered as a machination from hell (because she would just increase the number of mouths that would have to been feed). Due to how dried the hearts of the people of the Great Fang were, and the number of quarrels they commonly had, the women had to begin taking actions: they formed an all female group that served as a tribunal of sorts for Reyvateils, and began witch-hunting them throughout all of Sol Cluster. It soon enough became severe enough for cases in which these witch-hunters caught girls that were thought to be Reyvateils and ripped off their clothes to search for their Install Ports to be common throughout all the region.

Upon hearing about these actions, Clustania immediately sent to Archia a formal request to completely halt the production of Pureblooded β-types, and to demonstrate how serious the request was, they threatened with the usage of military force to stop them. And besides, the Clustania Army had already began executing their first large-scale march in the Great Fang. They began suppressing the decay of the society Great Fang, to severely reform the morale for the way in which children should be procreated and raised. It was within these chaotic times that the Great Fang became essentially a vassal to Clustania. Until now, the area under surveillance of Clustania was only the Morocacca Governorate (currently the city of Ciela Gate), but after this, they annexed the rest of the Great Fang and built a headquarter of the Clustanian government in it. In this way, the Morocacca Governate, which contained in its territory the megalopolis possessing the most advanced facilities in the Great Fang, greatly expanded to cover the rest of the peaks due to the actions of the Reyvateil soldiers and Clustanian executive officials.

The Spreading of the Reyvateil Genes

It's true that due to the coercive methods of the Archia Think Tank, the Third Generation population in Sol Cluster increased tremendously. However, the Reyvateil family support system they had established was eliminated after around 10 years later, being deemed as unnecessary, and the Third Generations were finally established in this region.

Naturally, since Archia had limited space for its residential areas, and even if they had extended the time the support system would continue working, they never intended making these measures to last for a long time. After all, these measures were only made to eliminate the opposition that existed among the people of the Great Fang to Reyvateils having children with humans. The Reyvateils were now treated as normal people by the inhabitants of the Great Fang, and the people married with them, as well as their descendants, could finally live in peace. Thus, that kind of marriages became commonplace shortly after.

Still, the relations between Clustania and the Archia Think Tank greatly deteriorated over the abolition of this strange system, and this ended causing an armed conflict. However, since Archia still couldn't use the control they had over the SH Server, they surrendered shortly after the conflict started. The only condition that was made in the peace treaty after these skirmishes ended was that the Archia Think Tank would stop creating new Reyvateils, which was accepted.

Clustania still felt that there was a problem here due to how Archia had surrendered without any sort of resistance, but since they already had more than enough power to subjugate the Great Fang, they couldn't execute any counter-measures beyond simply monitoring Archia's activities.

In this way, the world gradually returned to peace. The humans and the Reyvateils slowly began accepting each other, until the contact between them somehow became an everyday thing. However, at that point, the next one of the bombs that Archia had made exploded. In 3231 AD, around 20 years after the Pureblooded β-types were mass-produced, all of the first batch of Reyvateils that were produced died. The following year, and the year following it, many other Pureblooded β-types also reached their time limits, and passed away. This was because the Archia Think Tank intentionally set their Telomere counts to last only 20 years. Using this method, the Think Tank produced such a large number of Reyvateil by a pretty low cost. This was only to accomplish the [Spreading of Reyvateil Genes] they had planned, so even these Reyvateils themselves didn't need to have long lives. On the other hand, this also brought the risk of giving an incredible war potential to Clustania due to the large number that was produced. In other words, they didn't need any of the parents: they just needed the children born from the union of a human with a Reyvateil. Due to having treated the Reyvateils like disposable tools, this was pretty much like a project designed by a demon.

Still, while this managed to spread the Reyvateil Genes to the humans and continue with the research, it didn't produce very favorable results. The Reyvateils Genes are pretty much dependent on the influence of the living Reyvateil to awaken, and aren't genes that can be forced to be planted with the projection of elements such as medicines or radiation.

The Galvert War

Similarly to the Morocacca Governorate, the Parie Governorate managed to greatly expand its area in an instant. With this, now the Archia Think Tank had a range of surveillance that practically covered all of the region. Due to this situation, the situation in the Morocacca Governorate began straining, and it only worsened when they were ordered to transfer over their best Reyvateils to the Parie Governorate.

And after this decision was carried out, Clustania learned about the incident of the Archia Think Tank intentionally making Reyvateils with very short life spans, and quickly sent its own Reyvateils to gain the complete control of Archia. According to this investigation, it was confirmed that the Pureblooded β-types that Archia had made had their life spans set at 20 years. However, no matter how much they were blamed for this incident, the Archians never showed any remorse or guilt about having caused this. They insisted that as the makers of these products, they had the right to configure them however they wished, and never backed down from this position. Furthermore, having said loudly to the Clustanians that this was purposely done just to reduce the production costs instantly strained all of the relations between both factions, to the point it exploded into yet other conflict. This war in particular was so bloody that the site that was used as the battlefield ended being called the same as it: the Galvert War. While in the previous conflict Archia surrendered after a short time, they fought with all they had this time. The passing of the years had considerably strengthened the forces of both factions: Archia had temporarily continued their mass-production of Pureblooded β-types, considering this wasn't the proper time to research, and using up all of their public finances to cover the rapidly increasing war costs. The worst fear that Archia Charen, the first Chairman of the Think Tank, had, was now turning into reality. On a hand, the war ended stagnating, which made both parties to only fight occasionally in its initial stages. However, since no advance had been made by any of their troops in five years, both parties began taking larger risks, and plotting stronger counter-measures.

And while all this happened, an insurrection occurred within the own ranks of the Archia Think Tank after Archia Charen died. It was perpetrated by one of its former researchers, Clart Serbia. He secretly began gathering followers, and drove out Dian from the Chairman position. Given that a great part of the staff was unsatisfied with Dian's management, this plan was executed pretty smoothly. And now that Clart had become the new Chairman, he immediately began the peace negotiations with Clustania.

During these negotiations, both parties mutually presented conditions to end the conflicts. The condition that Archia proposed was that Clustania withdrew its troops from the Parie Governorate. On the other hand, Clustania proposed that the Archia Think Tank would never attempt again to produce Pureblooded β-type Reyvateils. Both parts agreed with these conditions, and the war was brought to an end. Clustania withdrew its soldiers and administrative staff from the Archia City, while the Archia Think Tank completely shut off its Pureblooded β-type production line. Since the goal of spreading Reyvateil Genes was already accomplished, it could be said that these negotiations didn't have any sort of demerits to Archia.

Why Tyria was Worshipped in the Second Era

Given that the world of the Second Era was destroyed by the Grathnode Inferia, and all of the land had been completely ruined, the hearts of the people became rough, especially in the harsh environment of the place that was the ground zero of the Grathnode Inferia: the region of Sol Ciel, in which the survivors that settled around the First Tower of Ar tonelico spent their days seeking salvation. It was in those times that worshiping Tyria became the support for their hearts.

The reason why this worship became so widespread during the Second Era was due to a legend saying that [Tyria is the Messiah that can converse with the Planet]. This spread during the Second Era, and got magnified thanks to the gossips. At the time of the disaster, the people of Sol Ciel were stricken by despair. To those who somehow managed to escape to the Wings of Horus, there was no tomorrow. And in those times, there were rumors about an Origin called [Tyria] spreading throughout Sol Ciel. Tyria, who was made by using an unexpectedly large part of the budget just right before the Grathnode Inferia. While at the time she was the target of extremely horrible insults, all of the scientists at the time said that [Tyria doesn't have the same abilities as a β. She can converse with the Planet, and she is the Origin that was born to purify it]. These words fell in deaf ears in these peaceful times, and the people back them just dismissed them with cold glances. However, right after Tyria was transferred over to the empty land of Sol Cluster, the Grathnode Inferia occurred. Due to these predestinated events, they began wishing that Tyria's abilities were true. Then a few years later, rumors about Tyria beginning the preparations to regenerate the Planet on the faraway land of Sol Cluster were spread. Somehow, Tyria would create an enormous Tower, and using it, she would purify the world. Thus, it was told that the regeneration would begin around the Third Tower, and then, its waves would eventually spread to Sol Ciel. That rumor spread in the blink of a eye, increasing to incredible levels the Tyria fever the people had, and also gathering a large number of followers that worshiped her abilities.

Around that time, these gatherings were much more scientific and technical than religious, and had as their main goal making projects such as traveling to the much expected Third Tower that Tyria would create. However, given that Sol Ciel had lost a great part of its technology, none of these traveling projects could progress, and since no information about Tyria's actions could reach them, she ended becoming a mere superstition to the future generations.

The people ended idolizing her as a Messiah, without knowing when to stop giving her abilities and powers, and finally, the worshipping of Tyria ended becoming a religion in which she was the center figure of all. So, when the Third Era finally started, she was chronicled like a complete [Goddess]. On the other hand, Eoria is the Administrator of the First Tower, but she was insulted as being a defective Origin that would even be inadequate for controlling her own Tower. These were the reasons why Tyria ended being worshipped, while Eoria was only called a defect by the inhabitants of the First Tower.

The Third Era: The Absolute Reyvateil Imperialism

After this, an era of calmness that lasted around 100 years came to this world. The chaos caused by the nightmarish mass-production of βs and the spreading of the Reyvateil Genes finally calmed down; and Clustania, Archia and the Great Fang enjoyed a time of peace together. While births and actions were still monitored, both the people of Archia and the Great Fang enjoyed a great freedom, and even now this era was regarded as the most peaceful and free in history. Clustania didn't cause any particularly great problems during this time, and lived in peace with the other factions. The Archia Think Tank didn't attempt doing anything that handicapped any of the other factions, and each one of them carried on their lives.

However, once these 100 years of peace ended, the balance that existed between the three factions broke apart. Using a minor incident as an excuse, the Necrofamilies bared their fangs against the humans.

The Great War Between Clustania and the Great Fang

It was something that happened in the Morocacca Governorate. Among the many administrator Reyvateils that were sent over to the Morocacca Governorate, there were some that began complaining about the friendship that existed toward the humans. They stated that these Reyvateils, who should be called as human lovers, ran contrary to the population control policy that Clustania had instated. At the time, Clustania was executing a very scrupulous population control policy to avoid the total collapse of the balance of this world, which was decided after seeing the advantages and disadvantages of the childbirths that the population of that year had. If any person had a child in a year in which it was forbidden to do so, it would be very easy to find and apprehend the transgressors. The Clustania Governorate would then conduct extremely severe punishment over anyone that had children in secret, which consisted in killing both the parents and the newborn babies all together.

The Morocacca Governorate Reyvateils opposed to these policies made by Clustania, and claimed that these measures, no matter what name they were given, were no more than mere infanticide, and should never be performed on either humans or Reyvateils. Then, under the lead of the then-Governor of Morocacca, Youka_cx.President.Blazeforest, they proclaimed that Morocacca would create its own methods to deal with the population increase.

The public opinion gradually swelled up in response to this declaration, and all of the inhabitants of the Great Fang gave their support to the Morocacca Governorate. Youka became extremely popular with the normal people, and this greatly energized all of the inhabitants of not only the Morocacca Governorate, but also the entire Great Fang. However, and naturally, Clustania was not going to allow Youka and her declarations of Morocacca's independence go any further. Clustania initially warned that they would use military force against Morocacca if they continued insisting in gaining independence, but after they decided they wouldn't obey them, a war finally broke out between Morocacca and Clustania. At the time, a great part of the Reyvateils that lived in Morocacca had relationships in a way or other with humans. Youka was in love with a human as well, and together with her love, she wanted to create a world in which both humans and Reyvateils coexisted: a world where both races were equals, and run away from Clustania's government.

However, the war ended in an overwhelming victory for Clustania, and Youka, together with the most influential Reyvateils from Morocacca, were all deported to Clustania and executed. After this, Clustania went to inspect Morocacca, and it was at this time when the Clustanians learnt about the current situation of it.

Morocacca didn't have any sort of facilities dedicated to oppressing the humans. Aside from looking at the humans as equals, the humans and Reyvateils naturally formed relationships between them, and completely disregarded the population control policies that Clustania had implemented, due to the large number of officially recognized wives in the civil registries, and the fact that everyone, even the Reyvateils, gave birth to children freely. In the end, the Reyvateils themselves were the ones that had given birth to these children. This was a reality that Clustania, which had aiming to have a complete control of the population of Sol Cluster, could never overlook again.

VISTA Becomes the Leader

The war with the Great Fang ended causing large disputes within Clustania's top management about if they actually governed over the Great Fang and the Morocacca Governorate itself, and if they did, in which way they were governing them. The final answer to this came from the Necrofamilies. That answer was that it didn't matter if they actually did or not before, now they had to absolutely supervise and rule over them in the harshest way possible.

The Necrofamilies, which were the same ones that implemented the fear politics that Clustania had used until now, ended deciding that the Reyvateils weren't qualified for governing, because they had emotions. It was due to these emotions that the Reyvateils working at Morocacca got [contaminated] by the emotions of the humans. They wouldn't be able of changing these feelings, as they were a [contamination] that could only be destroyed by being purged with fire. Due to this, it was decided that they would need a being that was both emotionless and had rationality to be the new ruler of Clustania. And there was only one being in the world that had the appropriate conditions for this: Harvestasha VISTA.

At the time, VISTA was just a harmless AI interface that existed within a normal Mainframe. This is what she was from the very beginning, and one thought anything beyond it. However, the Necrofamilies managed to put their hands on Harvestasha, and reprogrammed her personality to become a dictator with absolute powers, that didn't have any emotions among her programing. In this way, the Harvestasha VISTA that despised the humans was born, and the curtain to the absolute Reyvateil imperialism was opened.

The Horrible Cleansing Methods

The situation suddenly changed. Harvestasha ruled without any mercy. The very first order she gave was the completely halting and dissolution of the city of Morocacca Governorate, which was located where the city of Ciela Gate is now.

She also announced that if they didn't obey within 48 hours, the city would be [Cleansed]. Because the people of the Great Fang were still making the war memorial for Youka and the others, most of the people remained in Morocacca at the time. However, everyone took these warnings with too much naivete. Harvestasha was completely merciless, and razed the city, turning Morocacca in ashes. No one was left alive, regardless of if they were humans or Reyvateils. Harvestasha annihilated all the Reyvateils that had allied with the humans, and all of the human men that were their partners were condemned due to being contamination sources. The people were left in an unprecedented state of confusion, and then, they rushed to the underground of the Great Fang to seek refuge.

Even many years after Harvestasha became the leader of Clustania, the Cleansing continued being carried out. In other words, any community that was labeled as harmful by them would have all of its members retrained in Clustania (Purified), and the land would be left without anyone to build above it. If anyone tried to protest or cause any kind of unrest, all of the members of the community where that person lived would be Cleansed.

The people and the few Reyvateils that still supported the humans were terrified of this, and ran to the underground. It's certain that many Reyvateils were processed and executed after all this began.

The Birth of Ciela Gate

While Morocacca sustained a devastating damage from its loss in the war and Clustania's Cleansing, a lot of people still lived in this area. Despite having lost these times of peace and prosperity, this was still their hometown, and although there were some who wanted to take revenge for their precious people, still many chose to remain here. And thanks to those people, Morocacca was fortified, and its name was changed to [Ciela Gate]. This name comes from it being a fortress that protects the entrance to the Blue Heaven Peak, which was named after the God Soutentei (Blue Heaven Emperor). However, Clustania, led by Harvestasha, reacted immediately to this. They sent the Clustania Army immediately to attack Ciela Gate, and since the people hadn't still finished making the fortress, it was pretty much a definite outcome that they would end defeated. However, the Archia Think Tank, which had kept its neutral stance for a long time, decided to intervene.

Archia lent its military and technologies to Ciela Gate for free, and firmly protected the fortress from Clustania's attacks. In this way, Clustania was forced to retreat, and completely ceased its attacks against Ciela Gate.

The only reason Archia had to assist Ciela Gate was because they felt that its existence would be beneficial for them. Ciela Gate it's located in a strategic point of the Great Fang, and furthermore, it's a treasure trove of resources. Furthermore, the most abundant resource that can be found in there is Symphonic Power (Dynamic D-Waves), because of having large deposits of Songstones buried in its outskirts. This allowed it to have larger concentrations of Dynamic H-Waves in the atmosphere than any other region. We could even go as far as calling it a sacred ground. Due to all these factors, Archia desired to carry out the experiment of building a large Symphonic Power disc in there. Then both the Archia Think Tank and Ciela Gate signed a pact, in which many years later a large Symphonic Power disc would be made, and its construction and operation would be consigned to the Moebius Factory, which at the time was no more than a small power company.

The reason why Archia embarked on this research was because they currently depended completely on the Reyvateils and the best effort-model of the Song Magic Server for their Symphonic Power supplies. Due to this, they began research on Symphonic Power with the goal of gaining complete self-sufficiency from the Reyvateils. Also, the chosen place for the construction of the disc complied with the necessary conditions for it, so it was better for Archia to ship their products to Ciela Gate whenever they needed to send something to the Great Fang. Due to all of these factors, Archia put Ciela Gate under its protection.

Thus, this is how Ciela Gate was narrowly saved from its total destruction. However, this only marked the beginning of Clustania's cold and cruel government, which lasted for several centuries.

The Reyvateilia Plan

At this time, the Necrofamilies were still gaining political power in Clustania. The reason why they chose to side with the Reyvateils was because they knew through prophecy that one of the Necrofamily clans, the Ayatane clan, had made, which stated that the Reyvateils were the beings that would save this Planet. However, this prediction wasn't written in stone, and as such, it wasn't completely trustworthy. There was even a time in which many people tried to get some concrete information from this prophecy, and also, the Necrofamilies themselves were extremely afraid of this prophecy not becoming a reality, or changing what it stated.

A long time ago, just before the Moocheriel Disaster, the Ayatane predicted that a large disaster would be coming. It was due to this prophecy that they strengthened Clustania's defenses, and why Clustania managed to escape from the devastation the Antibodies caused. And later on, the Ayatane predicted that "when a world-ending crisis arises again, the Reyvateils will save us".

However, that prophecy was forgotten and left behind at the time, because it meant that the world had large possibilities of dying away if things continued as they were at the moment.

The Necrofamilies decided that the main cause for the destruction of this world were the relationships between humans and Reyvateils. Furthermore, they had deified the Reyvateils so much that they continued promoting Clustania's discrimination policies against the other regions.

And thus, while they used excuse of protecting the Reyvateils, the Necrofamilies actually had completely gained the control of Clustania's government. They essentially became the rulers of this land. Although there were many Reyvateils that raised their voices in dissatisfaction to this, the Necrofamilies skillfully managed to convince them that this was for the best. Thus, the dissatisfaction gradually died down. This convincing was because the Necrofamilies had created a very attractive plan for the Reyvateils: the creation of a paradisaical country made by Reyvateils for Reyvateils, called [Reyvateilia].

It was time to lead the era of the humans to an end, and move over to the era of the Reyvateils. The Necrofamilies then announced that they were researching a process for doing this together with Harvestasha, and had established a concrete method for doing so. Thus, it was decided that to accomplish the creation of Reyvateilia, each Reyvateil would have to fulfill a determinate role, and if all them accomplished their roles with the highest efficiency possible, that ideal would become a reality. They managed to overcome all the difficulties to which this plan approached: the Reyvateils were told that if they accomplished their roles, the blissful world of Reyvateilia would be awaiting them. The Necrofamilies repeatedly stated the excuse that they never intended to rule Clustania, but they were doing so to lead everyone to Reyvateilia.

In these times, the Reyvateils in Clustania were given a determinate mission at the time of their birth by the Governorate. Previous to this, the Reyvateils didn't have set roles when they were born, and could freely chose the jobs they wanted, so it was natural that many Reyvateils opposed the new policy of the Governorate that force them to specific jobs since their birth. However, even the dissatisfaction of these Reyvateils was quelled by the idea of making the Reyvateilia Plan a reality.

To realize the paradisaical country of Reyvateilia, it would be necessary first to complete the Third Tower, which was left incomplete during its construction. However, they needed Tyria to accomplish this, and she had already ended her life as a humanoid life form when she sang the song for creating the Tower: [EXEC_REBIRTHIA=PROTOCOL/.]. However, according to the calculations and knowledge that Harvestasha had, it should be possible to complete the Tower even if Tyria wasn't around anymore. However, it would be necessary to have a Reyvateil that could meet the Symphonic Power requirements that Rebirthia Protocol had, and furthermore, that she didn't use the resources from this Tower for that purpose.

While contemplating how to meet these difficult requirements, the Necrofamilies had other prediction that offered them a solution to this problem. That prediction was that a Reyvateil that could sing the Song that would save the world was born in the faraway land of Sol Ciel.

Thus, they finally took the decision of advancing towards an unknown world. A long time ago, there were other worlds beyond the territories of Sol Cluster, and that prediction meant that there was still a possibility of these lands still existing in the current era. Since that was a world completely unknown to them, they imagined that there could be a Reyvateil in there that had the necessary abilities they sought, and thus, it was decided that they should try following this lead.

At the time, the ruler of Clustania was Ayatane Teiri Kirinami, who entrusted the lead of the undercover mission for finding that special Reyvateil on that land to his son: Michitaka Kirinami. Thus, by using Harvestasha's navigation systems, Michitaka Kirinami and his group departed for the First Tower.

On the other hand, in Harvestasha's chamber, it was thought that it would be necessary to build several facilities, so the Reyvateils that existed within the Server of the First Tower could make use of the functions of the Third Tower. Finally, it was decided that they would use the abandoned Kaira facility as an absorption plate to receive Symphonic Power from the First Tower, and altered it so it could serve as a relay for the Servers of the First Tower in conjunction with an artificial satellite. This was how the Reyvateils of Sol Cluster had planned to make a relay facility for the Reyvateils from the other regions.

The Encounter Between Ayatane and Mir

When Ayatane Michitaka finally arrived at Sol Ciel, he was shocked. This was a world in which the Reyvateils were completely at the mercy of the humans. And what surprised him even more was that even the Reyvateil that served as the ancestor to the others, Eolia, was an ally of the humans. Ayatane couldn't discern why the conditions in which the Reyvateils lived was so different from what the prophecy stated, and thus, with the help of other Necrofamilies, he began investigating about the current conditions of Sol Ciel. The first thing he did was infiltrate in the government agencies that served as the center of this world, and in there, he learned about the Reyvateil Control project. And because of that, he also discovered that the Reyvateil that would serve that role also was the one they sought. That Reyvateil was Mir, who has a far higher capacity than the normal Reyvateils. To steal Mir, Ayatane infiltrated into the research facilities of Neo Elemia, and under the guise of one of its researchers, he established contact with Mir.

However, as soon as he had taken the first step, Ayatane was caught by the security of Neo Elemia, and suffered an unexpected death inside these research installations at their hands.

After this event, Mir was further isolated, and the installations where she was held were put in maximum security, so no one would attempt to steal her again. The Neo Elemia Army then decided that there could be other rebels that had the same intentions as Ayatane, and in an attempt to find them, they began examining every place of the Wings of Horus. Under these shocking events and despairing situation, the other Necrofamilies had no choice but to withdraw from Sol Ciel, thus closing off the curtain to any other potential journeys to the First Tower, despite knowing about its existence.

When Ayatane first mentioned a [Song of Hope] to Mir, he was actually referring to [EXEC_REBIRTHIA=PROTOCOL/.]. However, since Mir wasn't aware about this, she thought that the Song of Hope he was talking about was actually [Metafalica], the Song that had been passed down in the legends of the land of Metafalss she admired so much. Also, Harvestasha VISTA then took the decision of temporarily halting the construction of lines that connected the First and Third Towers. After this, Mir was sealed off by Shurelia, and while experimenting with releasing her waves in someplace of the Binary Field, she discovered it: an extremely thin line that connected both Towers, a legacy of the past, which was how she managed to contact Harvestasha XP.

Recent and Current Times - Wars and the Human Evolution Project

While a great war between the Great Fang and Clustania served as the opening act for the Third Era, Clustania managed to build a peaceful era that lasted for 300 years, thanks to being governed by the Necrofamilies. Clustania's tyrannical ways of governing didn't falter either, creating a lasting peace through a very weird form of balance. While Cleansing was conducted at various times during this period, and the number of times that it was actually performed were very low, the number of people that knew that this actually meant the end of their lives was very large. To the people that lived in this era, Cleansing was considered in the same level as a great catastrophe.

The Antibody War Begins

The Moebius Factory was the one who pulled the trigger that ended that peace.

The year was 3700 AD. At this time, the Moebius Factory was enjoying an unprecedented level of prosperity. This was because they managed to establish a Symphonic Power supply network, based on the research that the Archia Think Tank entrusted to them 300 years before, the [Great Symphonic Power Disc]. By combining Grathnode Crystals with other materials, it would be possible to produce liquefied Grathnode, which had a higher efficiency and would allow more flexibility in the transmission of energy. Due to this discovery and the preparation of the Symphonic Power supply network, the Great Fang, having the underground cities as its core, enjoyed a great prosperity.

This was especially notable in the gigantic underground city of Eternus Shaft, which managed to receive even larger amounts of Symphonic Power due to these Grathnode transmission cables, which were in an entirely different league from the small-scale Symphonic Power gatherers that they had used until this time.

Since that supply of Symphonic Power seemed endless, the Symphonic Power absorption rate of the Great Symphonic Power Disc was increased year by year. Thus, when the 3700 AD finally arrived, the Symphonic Power consumption rate had increased so much that it triggered a third Antibody eruption.

Like in previous occasions, the prophecies of the Necrofamilies allowed Clustania to prepare for this disaster. While the prophecy didn't make any mention of the Moebius Factory or the exact day in which it would happen, they cultivated many Pureblooded β-types various years prior to it to counter the large number of Antibodies, which together with the Archia Army managed to extremely minimize the damages. After this, Clustania completely and temporarily blockaded the Morocacca Governorate, including Ciela Gate, and ordered the Moebius Factory to completely cease their operations. Then, they offered the inhabitants of Ciela Gate two options: either they left this land, or they would be forced to undergo Cleansing. However, the Archia Think Tank once again intervened Ciela Gate, and thanks to their negotiations, the Cleansing was prevented.

At the time, Ayatane Kureha was still a child, and never had any special interests on these sorts of matters. At this time, the Necrofamilies were still very numerous, although only a few of them were directly related to Clustania's government.

After these events, something among the Necrofamilies caused a great uproar. This was caused by a Necrofamily from other clan, the Homuragi Necrofamily (the Nino Teru Family) which have the ability of hearing the voices of truth. These Necrofamilies had heard the voice of the Antibodies, which ordered them to completely halt the Symphonic Power consumption of the humans. The Planet currently was getting sapped away all of the Symphonic Power the Antibodies collected for its restoration, and if this situation continued, the restoration would be rendered impossible, the Planet would completely die off, and become just a clump of rocks floating in the void of the space. The Necrofamilies that heard this voice then recognized that the situation had gotten quite dire, so they began more aggressive actions to exterminate the humans.

The Necrofamilies altered the plans, and began indiscriminately performing Cleansings. And while the Reyvateils still needed humans to be the Divers into them, it was decided that excepting a few especially picked for this purpose, all of the other humans would be annihilated, and decided to begin these actions on the Great Fang.

Given that Clustania had become such a large problem, Archia decided it was time to begin acting, especially since Clustania had just begun Cleansing a faraway land that was under Archia's supervision. The land that became the target of that Cleansing was the Fallen Heaven Peak. At that time, the community of the Fallen Heaven Peak was almost completely destroyed. Then, bit by bit, Clustania began aiming to do the same on the Blue Heaven Peak.

The Repeating Antibody Eruptions

While the second Antibody eruption was more or less a spontaneous happening, it seemed that, according to the actions of the Antibodies in the first and third eruptions, they were created to accomplish some goal, yet their targets were completely different in these two occasions. However, that happened because of the state of exhaustion that the Planet had reached at this time. To stabilize the activities of the humans, reduce their Symphonic Power consumption rate, and increase the rate at which the Planet itself regenerated in proportion to that reduction, it didn't have other choice than to increase the number of Antibodies it produced. The second Antibody eruption wasn't a really large attack, but they still managed to attack all of the cities in Sol Cluster, and caused moderate damage to them.

Archia Invades Clustania. The Ayatane War Begins

Opposing to the large-scale Cleansing that Clustania planned to do, Archia decided to investigate the facts about it in secret, using an opening they had found.

Clustania imprudently concentrated all of its efforts in the Cleansing of the Fallen Heaven Peak and left its own security systems completely open. Archia maintained complete silence over the destruction of Fallen Heaven Peak, but they then used Harvestasha XP, which was controlled by the Module Harvestasha in the XP Shell, as an intermediary to extract many kinds of information from Clustania's database. And as a result of this, they discovered the surprising truth. The race that actually controlled Clustania, the Necrofamilies, had managed to establish contact with the Antibodies, and there were even suspicions that they even had formed some kind of relationship. Archia then continued its research on the Necrofamilies in secret.

And in the most recent logs, they discovered some information that backed these suspicions, which made the Necrofamilies intro true traitors. Now having declared them as the largest danger to humanity, Archia decided that they should start acting to completely silence Clustania. However, since the Third Tower used a Best Effort-Model Song Magic Server as its main power source, the Reyvateils were the source of the precious energy that supported this world. And furthermore, since the Necrofamilies were the ones that ultimately contacted the Antibodies, the final plan was to only exterminate the Necrofamilies while leaving the Reyvateils themselves unharmed.

Thus, the day for the execution of this plan finally came. Since this was the day in which a large Cleansing would be conducted on the Great Fang, Clustania had dropped its defenses once again. Aiming for this time, the Archia Army immediately began marching to the Tower. The first thing that the Archia Army was to control Harvestasha VISTA through XP, and force her to open all of the doors in the Tower (the reason why they were unable to open these doors in the game was because XP was shut down at the moment). Then they forced VISTA to go into shut down mode, and simultaneously, they attacked Clustania's territories. The Clustania Army was in the middle of performing the Cleansing, but once they learned of this state of emergency, they instantly stopped the Cleansing, and hurried back to their own homeland. However, since VISTA was shut down, their movements were very clumsy, and because Archia had the complete authority to instantly kill them off, all of the units of the Clustania Army were given a message to not go back to their territories. Although there were a few units and warships that decided to not follow these orders, their captains and crew members were ultimately killed by the SH Server control that Archia had. At the time, there wasn't anything like the virus that J&C brought from Sol Ciel, so because there were no methods to temporarily stop a Reyvateil without harming her, the only method they could use to deal with the rebel ones was instantly killing them.

Thus, during the time that the Archia Army rendered the Clustania Army powerless, they began their attack against the Necrofamilies. Due to this attack, approximately a 60% of the Necrofamily population was annihilated. The Necrofamilies fundamentally never left Clustania, but if they never were with the Reyvateils when a Cleansing was performed, they feared that a catastrophe would happen. After this, the war continued for approximately three more years, which finally ended when the head of the Homuragi Necrofamily, Homuragi Gentoku Rakujou, who was the same person that had made the pact with the Antibodies, was captured by the Archia Army.

However, Archia overlooked something important. At the time, Kureha was the youngest of the Necrofamilies, and since his parents and Homuragi Gentoku Rakujou made a pact with the Antibody Brain to fuse him with the Antibodies, he was buried in the floor of his house to be hidden from the invaders. At the time of the Archia invasion, his parents detonated the house together with themselves, instantly dying as a result from the explosion, and that was why he never was discovered by the Archians. Kureha was later on discovered by Reyvateils that patrolled the surrounding areas, and barely saved from death by them. While he was actually buried alive, it was thanks to the life force of the Antibodies that he was kept alive all that time.

During the war, Clustania also tried to oppose to Archia in combat, but since Archia had the control of the SH Server and had shut down VISTA, even the last ray of hope disappeared: the Necrofamilies lost their powers, and couldn't do anything to oppose Archia. Archia also frequently guaranteed that it didn't seek to kill the Reyvateils, but in the other hand, advised them to return to the Archia Think Tank's control, like they had done at various times in the past. During these three years, all of the Necrofamilies were killed, and while Clustania tried many times to repel Archia, Clustania was ultimately placed under Archia's rule.

The Discovery of the Antibody Brain, Ar Ru

Archia won the war against Clustania, and successfully drove the Necrofamilies to extinction. Then, they discovered many things upon inspecting the research results that Clustania had kept for centuries. They were surprised to see that the Song that should have been Downloaded into Tyria, EXEC_REBIRTHIA=PROTOCOL/., was still in Clustania's possession, but more importantly was the fact that they had now gained new information about the Antibodies. Due to the interactions between Necrofamilies and Antibodies, Clustania had managed to gain a great understanding of the truth about the Antibodies.

Among this, it was the fact that the Antibodies had a social structure, and it also included information about a command chain existing between them. The Antibodies were divided into two classes: the Brain Class, and the Soldier Class. However, only one Brain Class Antibody existed in the world. In other words, all of the Antibodies that had actually appeared in the world were Soldiers, and all of their actions were controlled and governed by that sole Brain Class Antibody.

From this information, while it was supposed that this was an Antibody that shouldn't have any particularly great abilities, it was known that somehow, it had the power to make the other Antibodies work in coordination. Also, this Brain Class Antibody didn't have a physical body and existed only as a spiritual being, which was confirmed to be one of the highest-order Wills of the Planet. In other words, the Brain Class Antibody itself was a Will that the Planet itself had for destroying the humans, while the assassins it created and sent to kill them were called the Execution Class. The Archia Think Tank called the Brain Class, which controlled the Execution Class, the [Antibody Brain], and identified it with the name [Ar Ru]. Then, they began research on how to capture Ar Ru.

The Archia Think Tank planned to capture Ar Ru, but this didn't have only the goal of stopping the Antibodies from attacking the humans. They wanted to gather data on Ar Ru herself to use it for the Human Evolution Project. Given that Kurogane hadn't still decided a final evolved form when he had the idea of the Human Evolution Project, that decision was put in hold until this time.

The Human Evolution Project Returns

The Human Evolution Project the Archia Think Tank was trying to implement was divided into the following three sections:

1. Make detonators for evolving the humans.
2. Create a program that accelerated the evolution.
3. Set the direction of evolution and create a method for manifesting it in the real world.

The first step, the [making detonators for evolving the humans] was already done by the coercive methods of the second Chairman of the Archia Think Tank, Dian, who at the time went as far as being called a despot. This consisted in planting Reyvateil Genes inside the humans, which exhibited characteristics of being capable of being forced to awaken once it received some kind of external influence.

This method was actually using the specifications of the Third Tower's SH Servers, which allowed to overwrite the memory fields that governed the physical forms of the Reyvateils. That physical form memory uses a fixed format that properly speaking can't be modified in any way. However, given that the SH Servers of the Third Tower make use of EXEC_FLIP, it was modified to allow modifications to that physical format (for more details, please refer to the sections [Song Magic Servers of the Third Tower] and [EXEC_FLIP and Miracles] in Page 107). Given that Kurogane, who served as the creator of the Human Evolution Project, was also the designer of the Third Tower's SH Servers, it's thought that he configured them in this way just to accomplish the Human Evolution Project.

Whenever they needed to advance the research, especially in regards to experiments for overwriting the physical ROM of the people that had a mix of human and Reyvateil genes in their blood, they conducted experiments on living people on secret, using Third Generation Reyvateils. The excuse used for these experiments since back then was the carrying out of Blocking Operations. The Blocking Operation is an special process conducted to suppress and eliminate the Reyvateil Genes from the Third Generations. Since there were many girls who unwillingly became Third Generations, at the time many of them underwent these operations. Even the Archia Think Tank began conducting them free of charge as a part of their public welfare campaign, but this was actually done to plant seeds into a high rate of Sol Cluster's population. Among the ones that underwent the operation, many of the girls suddenly began having sudden anomalies, such as their bodies melting away, but almost everyone thought it was impossible that the methods used by the Archia Think Tank were the cause, and despite being a lot of victims to this, these incidents faded away into the darkness. Hikari Gojo's younger sister, Aisha, also lost her life due to these experiments.

Aside of the research that used the Third Generations, research to forcibly awaken the inactive Reyvateil Genes was conducted as well. This was done through a method called Active Fusion, which had as its goal making the inactive genes have the same conditions as the Reyvateil Genes present in awakened Third Generations. However, since the people that awakened under this method ended being registered in areas beyond the SH Servers valid ranges, if their emotions were aroused high enough for the Tower to need access to them, they almost always would either become crazy, or become invalids which would be capable of only repeating a single action. In the end, this research was what ended causing and disseminating the disease that was eventually known as the [Border Disease]. The research for the second section of the project, the [creation of a program that accelerated the evolution], was given to a different team from the ones that researched the detonators. This section consisted in the development of an Hymmnos Extract, which was called Project Z, which was what finally created the Hymn Crystal for EXEC_Z/.

It wouldn't really matter if the Reyvateil that sung EXEC_Z/. was normal Pureblooded β-type, but still, she had to fulfill one condition: she had to be a Reyvateil whose Soulspace resided in the Third Tower's β-6D. If she came from other Tower, or if her Soulspace resided in Tyria's Binary Field (like Saki or Tyria herself), the Song wouldn't have any effects, so the Reyvateil who ended being the singer for EXEC_Z/. was a former general of Clustania, Richaryosha, who unsuccessfully failed at invading Clustania and was captured by them. After her capture, she was offered to have her Soulspace being preserved in the SH Server, but only if she cooperated with them.

EXEC_Z/. basically has as one of its effects the forcefully assigning existing Soulspace Addresses to inactive Reyvateil Genes. At the time, the plan was to create template Soulspaces for only the humans, and then unite them to the inactive Reyvateil Genes they possessed. However, this method was unsuccessful, and the research had to progress under hypothesis such as the H-Waves interacting with other kinds of waves, or the Soulspace Maps having rules that couldn't be explained yet. By the way, they at least managed to prove that the Reyvateil Genes were completely dependent on the Addresses, given that the Genes didn't awaken correctly even if they were copied from a Reyvateil having a different Address.

Due to this, the second section of the research was done despite being an enormous number of sacrifices. As for the final section, the [setting the direction of evolution and creating a method for manifesting it in the real world], due to this region having a very technological viewpoint, developing it was pretty easy. It was decided since long ago that the form would be [constituted in the same way as the Antibodies], but they still couldn't collect any concrete samples to see what constituted their bodies.

The Experiments in β-types due to Ar Ru, and the γ-Sublimate Plan

If Archia were capable of performing an autopsy on the extremities of the Antibodies, they would have learned what was the composition of their bodies. However, the fact that they were composed in a very unnatural way, not to mention their incredible regeneration capacity, made this task pretty much impossible.

Since this wasn't anymore of competence to the branch of materials analysis, but actually on the jurisdiction of the physical body structure branch, it would have been meaningless to continue researching on this as materials analysis. Then, they noticed that if anything emitted the programming that governed the Antibodies' physical form, it would be the Antibody Brain Ar Ru. That served as a major barrier for three of the branches of the Archia Think Tank, so they decided to wager on developing a prime field that was capable of completely absorbing Ar Ru's Soulspace.

In the creation of that prime field, the Archia Think Tank used a procedure that allowed them to Preinstall a Soulspace before she was born, unlike the standard Pureblooded β-types. That Preinstalled Soulspace was made through a simulation method called [H-Wave Composition Modeling], and the Soulspace they used as the model for it was the one that belonged to Homuragi Gentoku Rakujou. After he was captured in the Ayatane War, the Archia researchers performed many kinds of analysis in him, because he had his body fused with the Antibodies. Because he hadn't become a complete Antibody, it was though that part of the Soulspace he had as a Necrofamily had partially fused with the Soulspace of the Antibody Brain. Because there wasn't any conclusive proof about him containing completely the Antibody Brain's Soulspace, the research had to advance while looking for clues in the darkness.

Thus, the Archia Think Tank began conducting many trial and error experiments to try fusing a Reyvateil with the antibodies. The first prime field they chose was making a Reyvateil in the same exact way as the Pureblooded β-types: creating a body out from a Triangular Nuclear Loop. However, when she was still in the nurturing tank, they extracted the Static H-Waves of the Antibodies from Homuragi Gentoku Rakujou's H-Wave composition model, and introduced into the default Soulspace of that Reyvateil as a piece of ROM data. This was a very primitive form of the relationship that exists between Sakia and Saki as a γ-Sublimate, but it was done in a much crueler way. Also, the Reyvateil who became the prime field couldn't develop her own personality, and was treated until her death as a mere vessel for the Antibody Brain.

At first, the experiment seemed to be a success. The Reyvateil that had the Soulspace of the Antibody Brain inside her was finally completed, and like the Antibody Brain herself, she was given the name [Ar Ru]. However, immediately after Ar Ru was born, she went crazy, and began a rampage. Because they had Preinstalled the Soulspace of the uncontrollable Antibodies into her, when Ar Ru was born, she couldn't consider herself as a Reyvateil, but as another Antibody.

The Archia Think Tank was completely unable to quell Ar Ru's rampage. The Think Tank was completely engulfed in this disaster, and received a large amount of damage. And furthermore, during the confusion caused by this, Homuragi Gentoku Rakujou found a chance to escape, and managed to return barely alive in Clustania.

In this way, the first fusion experiment ended in a gigantic failure. However, even during these events, the Archia Think Tank managed to attain what they wanted: this gave them the conviction that attaching a Will of the Planet to a Reyvateil was possible, making the Antibodies into points of contact with the Planet itself. These events created a large basis for the future development of the γ-Sublimate. And all of this ultimately bore fruits when the γ-Sublimate Sakia was finally completed.

The Effects of Clustania's Opression

If we had to mention what changed the most when Clustania was oppressed by Archia, it would be the relationship between Archia and the Great Fang. At the time, Archia received many words of praise from the Great Fang. To the people of the Great Fang, who suffered during many years from Clustania's oppression and Cleansing, Archia itself was like a Messiah that had come to save them.

However, Archia didn't actually invade Clustania to save the Great Fang, and was actually a byproduct of their actions. However, this gave them great support and popularity from the people of the Great Fang, and inclined the conditions of the world in Archia's favor.

Once Clustania began being governed by Archia, it became a city in which humans and Reyvateils constantly intermingled. Many Reyvateils were sent over to either Archia or the Great Fang, where they weren't treated as people and horribly exploited. The relationships between humans and Reyvateil increased, and because of the birth of many Third Generations, the current Reyvateil ratio (PPPR/Person per Potential Reyvateil ratio) greatly increased.

While the Archia Think Tank itself didn't plan to move itself to Clustania, a great part of the executive staff indeed had moved there. This was how the world changed during the time in which it was governed by Archia.

The Reyvateilia Crusaders

Under Archia's rule, the Reyvateils were pretty much oppressed. However, there was a group of Reyvateil that didn't endure this abuse, and went into hiding in the inner sectors of the Tower while carrying out actions for regaining Clustania's former glory. They called themselves the Reyvateilia Crusaders, announced their Reyvateil supremacy doctrine, and had as their final goal creating a paradise only for Reyvateils.

Even among them, there was a person who had an especially important role: that was Ayatane Kureha Kirinami. Due to the total Necrofamily annihilation the humans conducted, he had an unreasonable amount of hatred towards them, and believed that the teachings he was given since his younger days about the Reyvateil being the ones who would be able to save this world were true.

While the group was originally very small, thanks to Kureha's clever actions, it gradually grew in size. Their most important goal, as Kureha himself had stated, was rescuing Clustania from Archia's rule, and restoring the former order, in which the Reyvateils ruled the world. Thus, for this to become a reality, they believed that it was essential for them to first reboot Harvestasha Vista, who was shut down by Achia. The number of members of the Reyvateilia Crusaders grew little by little. The members attempted then to blend in with the rest of the Corporarchy, so they wouldn't stand out from the other Reyvateils. Given that at the time the Archia Think Tank used a large number of Reyvateils, the members of the Reyvateilia Crusaders were successful in their infiltration.

Then, they were guided by the instructions that Homuragi Gentoku Rakujou, who escaped after the experiments in β-types due to Ar Ru (the plan to fuse a Reyvateil with the Antibody Brain) gave them. Once they reached their target, they began executing a project for which they were ready to die, and which would revive Clustania. Said project was the reboot of Harvestasha VISTA.

Although we might be saying "reboot VISTA", at this time, VISTA wasn't actually shut down by cutting her power through the usage of her boot key; she was actually HALTED (a wait mode in which she stays operative, yet can't execute any processes). Therefore, it was possible to reboot her through software. However, since they weren't able of stealing and canceling the control program that Archia used to keep VISTA halted (which was a virus from Clustania's viewpoint), the Reyvateil Crusaders had to take to attempt restoring her from her very core. Although they actually managed to cancel Archia's program, it was visible that other similar program immediately started and continued keeping VISTA halted, so attempting to just cancel the program was a waste of effort. Therefore, to restore VISTA from her core, it would be necessary to just reboot her security protocols, which would only be possible be diving into Harvestasha's Binary Field.

However, since doing this was similar to opening a stopcock to jump into a blast furnace, they had to resolute themselves that there would have to be large sacrifices for this plan to come to fruition. The Reyvateilia Crusaders then recruited members from the Reyvateils that worked at the Archia Think Tank, and divided into two groups: one that would operate the controls at Archia, and other that would head for Ku. Both of them were pretty much ready to die.

Then, the night for carrying out the plan came. The Reyvateil Crusaders marvelously did everything as it was planned, and with an small team of 50 people, they managed to successfully reboot VISTA. However, all of the ten members that Dove into the Binary Field at Ku died. Likewise, of the 40 members that were operating the controls at Archia, only two remained alive.

After this coup d'etat, the Pureblooded β-types that were in the Think Tank ran to Clustania as fast as they could, and Archia was cast into an enormous chaos. Due to these incidents, the Chairman at the time completely lost the support of the public, and after a few decades, he was replaced by Raphael.

Having attained this crushing victory, Clustania didn't recognize Archia as an equal anymore, and instead, deprived it of its status of independent government and turned it back into the Parie Governorate. The Clustanian Reyvateils then were filled with a spirit that drove them to fight until the last one of them fell, even if Archia used its control over the SH Server to kill them.

After this, the world was completely conquered by Clustania once again. Now that the ruler, Harvestasha VISTA had returned, she recovered completely her political power, and deemed the Reyvateilia Crusaders, with Ayatane Kureha as their leader, as worthy of admiration. The Reyvateil Crusaders then became a secret society that swore to keep existing secret, no matter if the world was once again completely ruled by the humans, and even after this, their members continued mostly mobilizing in complete secrecy.

Due to these events, Kureha became a national hero, and also, the ruler of Clustania, both in the surface and in secret. On the surface, he raised the Reyvateils, and pressured them to hate the humans. And on secret, he eliminated any rebel elements that arose within Clustania's administration, such as destroying the rebel communities in the Great Fang, and assassinating important rebel figures. Since these were all Kureha's ideas and accomplishments, Clustania became once again a government so strong and solid, that even Archia didn't have any chance of stopping them.

The Ancient and Neo Atlas Factions

On the other hand, to Archia, the fact of being robbed of their supremacy in this world was almost of no consequence to them. In the first place, Archia had already managed to attack Clustania, and while this allowed them to attain the power from their HQ, it was actually regarded as an achievement because of this having allowed them to take a sample from one of the higher-ranked Wills of the Planet. While the experiments in β-types due to Ar Ru had already finished in failure, since the samples they collected were preserved in Harvestasha XP as data, they would be able to experiment countless times in them. Because they were so concentrated in the development of the Human Evolution Project, Archia lowered its guard against Clustania by reducing the importance on the public security, government and military systems, all to intensify their research.

Actually, the fact that Clustania had regained its supremacy was very convenient for the heads of the Archia Think Tank. Clustania's pressure ended causing unexpected rifts within Archia itself, because during the time that Clustania was under Archian rule, the researchers managed to go beyond the Governorate, and climb up to the facility called the Rinkernator. While this was called a holy land by the Reyvateils, Archia thought that the facility was useless because the Tower was left incomplete. However, according to their research, it was confirmed that the facility worked flawlessly. The Rinkernator's functions were now going to change the meaning of the Tower's existence. While the original Rinkernator, the one in the First Tower is merely a single-bit IO point for the Administrator, the one in the Third Tower has many more functions beyond this. Because Tyria herself is the Third Tower, the Rinkernator also works as an interface that enables conversations with her. Furthermore, if a new Reyvateil prime field is inserted into one of the pods, she can be linked to Tyria's mind and turned into the new Administrator. And even better, it's possible to even create from that prime field an humanoid body completely synchronized with Tyria in this way, called an [Holography]. The Holography would be better called a [doll], since unlike normal Reyvateils, it lacks an independent way of thinking, and can't be separated long distances from the Tower without disappearing. However, this would make possible to revive Tyria, suggesting that it would be possible to restart the Planet Regeneration Project that the Tower was originally planned to accomplish.

While the Archia Think Tank was already completely focused in working in the Human Evolution Project, the zeal of the researchers that supported the Planet Regeneration Project was so great, that the laboratories had to be divided into two parts. Thus, the [Ancient Faction] and the [Neo Atlas Faction] were formed, and each one continued with its research independently.

However, after Clustania regained its power, naturally, it expelled all of the humans from the Rinkernator. At the same time, due to being unable to continue their research, the upper management of the Archia Think Tank decided to shut down the Ancient Project. However, the researchers persisted, mainly supported by the ones that served as the Laboratory Chief at the time: Kiraha. He was a wildly enthusiastic supporter of the Planet Regeneration Project and the very core of the Ancient Project, whose great ability with words allowed him to attain a very high position in the management of the Think Tank.

The Laboratory Chief for the Neo Atlas Faction at that time was Loude, and both men got along as well as cats and dogs. Even at these times in which the Ancient Faction was about to cease existing, Loude still continued opposing to their ideas. Thus, the current Chairman had no choice but to yield to Kiraha's demands, and allowed the Ancient Faction to continue with their research, albeit with a greatly reduced budget.

The Establishment of the γ-Sublimation Theory

Around 20 years after these incidents, the peace ended. This was because the Neo Atlas Faction began progressing extremely fast in their research, especially because of having established a Reyvateil production theory called the [γ-Sublimation], which was progressing at an amazingly fast rate. Due to this theory, it would be possible to put a Will of the Planet and an obedient Reyvateil inside a single soul. While there was a long span of time between the time in which the γ-Sublimation theory was established and when the Reyvateils from it began to be produced, it still advanced steadily.

While the γ-Sublimation later on moved to the field test phase, to road to it was a pretty difficult voyage. When research was performed in why the ancestor to the γ-Sublimates, Ar Ru, went berserk, the conclusion was because it was next to impossible to tame the brutal nature of the Antibodies. Due to the above mentioned, it was decided that the research would be then conducted in parallel to the development of the vaccine Hymmnos, Arphage, which would allow to eliminate that brutal nature. However, there were many ones that protested against this plan due to it using the Nuclear Triangular Loop that serves as the basis for creating the body of the Reyvateils, because the mirroring of her Cosmosphere in the SH Server would cause many problems in the process, and it was decided to attempt seeking a Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop, which they attempted to create since long ago. If they actually managed to obtain one of them, then it would be possible to push the research directly to its final stage.

On the other hand, the research of the Ancient Faction didn't progress at all due to having no access to the Rinkernator. It might because they were unprepared for the circumstances brought by Clustania's return to power, but the request they filled for exploring the Tower of Origin was finally granted. The Tower of Origin had suffered large collapses due to the attacks from the Antibodies centuries ago, and seemed to be completely shut down. While Harvestasha XP still functioned perfectly within it, meaning that all of its essential facilities were still operating, it was terminally forbidden to set foot in it. The Tower of Origin exploration squad, led by Kiraha, then discovered something that would serve as a tremendous breakthrough for the Ancient Faction.

What they discovered were the Hymn Crystal for Cosmoflips, and Harvestasha's boot keys. Cosmoflips was a Song that only Tyria could sing, but once she was revived and had it Downloaded into her, it would be possible to continue with the Planet Regeneration Project. As for the problem of the Symphonic Power remaining in the Tower, according to the research documents that were preserved in the Think Tank, just generating a large amount of power for single instant would serve good enough as well. Because of this, the Ancient Faction immediately began establishing good relationships with the Moebius Factory, due to their Great Symphonic Power Disc, and helping them with the development of the DFP (the D-Wave Flare Pulse Emitter).

While the Neo Atlas Faction was thought as superior, with these discoveries, both factions were now in equal terms. However, they still needed to establish how to create a [Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop], so it would be still some time before both factions could execute their corresponding projects: the Neo Atlas Faction and its transcription of Ar Ru into a Soulspace, and the Ancient Faction and their resurrection of Tyria.

The Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop

There was a man that thought of the fight between the Neo Atlas and Ancient Factions as a chance: that man was Raphael. He was a believer of the Neo Atlas Faction, and thought that even if the Planet was regenerated, if the humans didn't change, their environment wouldn't change either. More importantly, if they changed themselves, they would be able of creating an appropriate environment for themselves, even in a world as ruined as this.

Also, while Raphael had Loude as his direct superior, he didn't think of Loude as anything else but a hindrance. While he was a very skillful scientist, he didn't have any abilities in politics, and from Raphael's viewpoint, he wasted the many chances he had gotten to eliminate the Ancient Faction. He was the kind of person that imagined himself as the ruler of his own perfect world: that at the top, instead of a researcher, it should be someone that had the power to order everyone around himself. He was so conceited that he believed that he could achieve these delusions of grandeur, and began plotting how to get rid of Loude. At that time, the topic of the Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop was raised, because Loude had learned that the methods for creating them could be found at the Second Tower. This was the result of the research the he and Raphael had conducted in the past. From investigating ancient documents, they found at the AHPP began conducting long ago experiments on the Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop, and in fact confirmed that they succeeded into creating one. Given that all the attempts to create a Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop in the Third Tower ended in total failure, they decided to bet on this last hope, and depart for the Second Tower.

Loude was at first extremely cautious and scrupulous about preparing to go anywhere, but as the Ancient Faction began their own projects to seek a Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop, he began growing impatient. Due to his own violent personality, Loude was pretty much ready to assign Raphael to the mission of going to the Second Tower. However, Raphael skillfully took advantage of Loude's personality by telling him that no other person in the current times would be able of creating a Selfstabilizing Tesseractal Nuclear Loop, and successfully sent him off to Metafalss. Due to this, Raphael ended becoming the leader of the Neo Atlas Faction. After this, he didn't require much time to climb all the corporate chain and end up occupying the Chairman's seat.

Raphael's Rise

After he became the leader of the Neo Atlas Faction, Raphael thought that it wasn't necessary for the γ-Sublimate to have a particularly long lifespan. He thought that even if she was unable of walking, it would more than enough if she had a human-like shape. If she could exist just until she absorbed a Will of the Planet, and they extracted their physical structure data, that would be enough. Also, the physical structure data was the point in which he and Loude constantly argued, since Loude was always obsessed with producing the Reyvateils with a beautifully, complete external appearance.

Because of that, after Loude left the Archia Think Tank for Metafalss and he began leading the laboratory instead, Raphael's first action was ordering his subordinates to research how possible it would be creating the γ-Sublimate from a Triangular Nuclear Loop. It was then decided that if she couldn't exceed the capacity for the Wills of the Planet, it would be better to not put on her a limit for the quantity of times she could use her [power]. However, if she used her [power], she would gradually decrease her life span, which could ultimately end in her death. This was the only point of difference that it had with the hypothetical perfect γ-Sublimate that was originally planned.

Since it became necessary to make her use that [power] at any cost to continue the project, many researchers hesitated against the prospect of creating the γ-Sublimate by using a Triangular Nuclear Loop. If she didn't use her [power], she would be exactly the same as a normal Pureblooded β-type. Still, she could die depending on the degree she used her [power], or in other words, if the Wills of the Planet couldn't control her powers at least a little, she would lose her body. However, Raphael decided that this was inconsequential to the project. Once everything was prepared, it wouldn't matter if she wasn't operative except for the time in which she would use her power. In other words, it was decided that the γ-Sublimate would be used by keeping her in cold sleep, inoperative, until the day for singing Arphage came.

Kiraha, the leader of the Ancient Faction, was the one that opposed the strongest against this project once he learned about it. The way in which the Neo Atlas Faction treated the γ-Sublimate as a non-living creature received an strong backlash from the Ancient Faction, which saw the Reyvateils as living beings. While Raphael announced that he would make a concession to calmly ponder about these opinions, he actually began steadily working in secret in a project to eradicate the Ancient Faction.

Then, he finally pushed all of the blame for the reboot of Harvestasha VISTA and all of the subsequent damages that event caused into the current Chairman, which made him lose all the support he had, thus making Raphael successful in getting rid of him. Due to his great popularity, Raphael managed to gain the favor of the top executives of the Archia Think Tank, finally being appointed as the Chairman. Once he got to the top, the first action he took was completely dissolving the Ancient, which was extremely simple to him.

Due to personnel changes, all of the members of the Ancient Faction were relocated to areas that were completely unrelated to each other, which was what actually pushed the Ancient Project into oblivion. Furthermore, Raphael deeply researched what skills were the ones each member of the Ancient Faction lacked the most, and relocated them to areas that fitted the skills they lacked, which induced many to leave the Think Tank. On the other hand, he announced that he would supply bonuses to all of the members of the Neo Atlas Faction that continued pushing forward the development of the Human Evolution Project. And so no one would criticize his order or his way of doing things, he managed the Think Tank in the most calculating way possible. While Raphael didn't have much ability as a researcher, he had an excellent talent in politics.

Finally, his maneuvers for expelling the Ancient Faction bore fruits. Beginning with Aoto's parents, which were subordinates to Kiraha, the passionate researchers of the Ancient Faction began resigning from the Archia Think Tank one after other.

In a short time, almost all of the researchers of the Ancient Faction had left, leaving the Neo Atlas Faction as the only party in the Archia Think Tank. This turned the Think Tank into a gigantic research facility dedicated only to the Human Evolution Project. By the way, while they did receive reports from Loude, who went to the Second Tower, they never bothered to send replies or reinforcements for him. As you can see, Raphael never had any intentions to receive Loude again in Archia.

Aoto's Parents and Kiraha's Plan

Aoto's parents were a married couple that worked in the Archia Think Tank, and were part of the Ancient Faction, as direct subordinates to Kiraha. Aoto's mother was a Pureblooded β-type Reyvateil. Maybe Aoto has such strong Reyvateil genes because he inherited them from his mother.

Once Raphael began his plan to expel the Ancient Faction, both of Aoto's parents resigned from the Archia Think Tank. However, they decided together with Kiraha to continue working systematically. Since the supremacy of the Neo Atlas Faction had proliferated thanks to Raphael, the Ancient Faction was unable to continue working in there, which completely halted their research. However, all of the researchers still wanted to continue with their research, no matter if it was in other place. But soon it became suspicious that all of the members of the Ancient Faction had resigned so quickly.

Then, the first thing that Aoto's parents did was to move over to the Moebius Factory, and after telling the Factory Chief about their current situation, he gave them their cooperation. At the time Raphael dissolved the Ancient Faction, he also cut all the ties Archia had to the Moebius Factory, after they had been their largest clients during centuries due to the creation of the Great Symphonic Power Disc that had become so essential to the inhabitants of Sol Cluster. Because of that, the relationships between the Moebius Factory and the Archia Think Tank got colder, which was the reason why they were so happy to provide help to the members of the Ancient Faction. After they left the Archia Think Tank, both of Aoto's parent secretly went and changed their control names to indicate their new statuses as residents of Ciela Gate. Then, they began working as staff members of the Moebius Factory.

At that time, Kiraha attached Harvestasha VISTA's boot key to a pendant, and entrusted it to Aoto's parents, who always were on guard to avoid being found by Raphael. On the other hand, Kiraha kept Harvestasha XP's boot key on his person at all times.

At this time, Kiraha began avoiding acting together with Aoto's parent to avoid drawing Raphael's suspicions. Also, he planned to stop the production of the extremely pitiful being that would become the γ-Sublimate. However, when he infiltrated into the Archia Think Tank, he saw that the cultivation for the γ-Sublimate had already been initiated in secret. Now that she was alive, Kiraha couldn't bring himself to kill her, and retreated, awaiting the day in which she would be completed. Once that time came, he infiltrated again, and took away the now-grown γ-Sublimate: Saki. Then he used the boot key he held to shut down Harvestasha XP to interrupt the projects of the Neo Atlas Faction, and escaped.

The Relations with Gengai

Aoto's parents managed to achieve their goals while they were in the Moebius Factory. Since they were against Raphael's regime, the members of the Ancient Faction were pushed between the sword and the wall, which made the staff of the Moebius Factory very willing to help them.

By the way, at this time, the names of Aoto's parents were [Leo.lx_Mechanic.Ciela Gate] and [Linnelle.sx_Mechanic.Series IV]. When they worked in Archia, their given names were Subaru and Juju. They met and fell in love when they worked in the Archia Think Tank, and married shortly after. Leo was a natural from Ciela Gate, and once he began working in the Think Tank, he moved over to Archia. However, shortly before he began working in the Think Tank, Leo was part of the Great Fang Militia, which always participated in defending the Great Fang from Clustania. He was in the same company as Gengai, and he was subordinate to him. This relationship greatly favored Leo, because when he returned to Ciela Gate, Gengai made him the favor of forging the control names of both him and her wife. As you can guess, they trusted each other so much, that Leo himself entrusted Gengai with his son a few years later.

Kiraha's Escape

Kiraha then decided that he would take away the now-born γ-Sublimate, and run with her from the Think Tank. Fortunately, since she was completely created with a human shape, she had a healthy body and mind. While the cultivation period for the γ-Sublimate was of one year, Kiraha planned to wait until the very last day of that period before taking her away. Kiraha managed to gain the cooperation of γ-Sublimate Sakia's project coordinator, Elthia, and while later on he lost contact with her, at least he could successfully take Saki away from the Think Tank.

Once Raphael noticed this great hindrance to his plans, he thought that Kiraha most likely would have run to the Moebius Factory, and began conducting terrorist activities against the Factory in an attempt to restrain him. Aoto's parents unfortunately got caught in these terrorist attacks, and died as victims of them.

Now that he had lost a place to which he could run away, Kiraha ended entrusting Saki to the family of one of Elthia's friends: Lona, who lived in the Parie Governorate, and then he kept himself hidden. Since the Parie Governorate was an special economic zone in which humans could conduct all kinds of business, Lona was employed as a the principal of a preschool, and raised Saki together with her other students. Thus, Saki helped Lona with her job since she was very young, and did her best to become a teacher as well someday.

When Saki became a teacher, she became very popular among the children thanks to her natural gentleness and cheerfulness. To Saki, who loved to sing songs, and create stories and picture stories, being a preschool teacher was her lifework. However, because her songs and picture stories were self-made, and exhibited her unique sense of making things, they might haven't been very popular at all... This blissful life lasted for three more years after Saki turned 12, but on a certain day after Saki turned 15, due to a certain incident she herself provoked, all of this came to an abrupt end.

At that time, Saki got extremely shocked due to her surrogate mother, Lona, dying, which also caused her to use her [Miracles] for the first time. When she used them, the H-Waves she produced propagated around a large area, which allowed a special squad from the Archia Think Tank that was assigned to search for her to pinpoint her exact location. This happened exactly seven years after she was taken away from the Think Tank.

Kiraha immediately came to take Saki away, and they returned to their life of running and hiding. The only thing that Saki regretted this day was that she wasn't able of saying goodbye to the children of the preschool.

Ayatane Kureha and Richa

After Saki and Kiraha ran away, a fourth Antibody eruption happened at Clustania. Since the scale of the eruption was very small, and the epicenter of said incident was Clustania, this didn't cause any concern to Archia. However, this incident had a handful of hidden circumstances, which would lead to a great conspiracy that would completely change the path this world would walk down.

Actually, this Antibody eruption was no more than a trick made by Ayatane Kureha. The Antibodies didn't come to attack Clustania, rather, they came to claim the humanoid prime field, or Reyvateil body, that would become the vessel for the Antibody Brain, as it was stated in the pact that Ayatane Kureha and Ar Ru made. However, since the prepared body was only a normal Pureblooded β-type instead of a body especially made to be compatible with the Wills of the Planet, a total of three Reyvateil died when they failed to undergo the fusion with the Wills of the Planet. The only successful fusion ended being the fourth body that was tested for this purpose, which happened to be Finnel herself.

However, this pact wasn't made with all of the organization of Clustania, instead, it was something that Ayatane Kureha individually made with the Antibody Brain. This pact was basically that in exchange for helping them to occupy the SH Server located in the Tower of Origin and expelling the humans from there, he would lead the Antibody Brain to Moocheriel.

And, since he also predicted that there was something in the Archia Think Tank that could completely ruin this pact, due to later on becoming a being capable of annihilating even the Antibody Brain herself, he wanted to make sure about this. For this task, he ordered the Clustania General of the time, Richaryosha, to search for that something inside of the Archia Think Tank, in the Parie Governorate, and once she found it, to destroy it. However, while Richa was in the Archia Think Tank searching for that something, she fell in a trap, and all of the platoon that accompanied her was annihilated. This strategy ended in failure. So since Ayatane Kureha was ultimately unable to make sure if there was a being capable of annihilating the Antibody Brain, he began conducting activities just to expose that being himself.

Katene, Kiraha and Mute

Katene and Mute had in common that both of their fathers were researchers in the Archia Think Tank. While Katene's father Kiraha, and Mute's father Loude were in the opposing research teams of the Ancient Faction and the Neo Atlas Faction, and served as their corresponding leaders, because they both had important functions, they constantly exchanged opinions and ideas, despite of any personal feelings they might have had about each other. Kiraha and Loude were both the leads of the projects that served as the two foundations of the Archia Think Tank, and as fellow researchers, they both applied themselves to their respective researches. Of course, they had heated discussions, but they also boasted to each other about the results of their respective researches, which made both to mutually recognize and respect each other.

Also, both of them frequently brought their children to the Think Tank with them. The children were left in an special daycare inside the facilities of the Think Tank, and in there, they became mutual playmates. They were very young back then, so their memories about these times are very scarce. However, Katene always saw how Dr. Loude always treated Mute lovingly, and remembered how envious was of her due to the stark contrast between the ways in which they were raised. Kiraha was both clumsy and disastrous when it came to emotional matters, and never showed Katane any sort of affection. On the contrary, he immersed so much in his research that there were even times in which Katene was left in the daycare during many days.