Concepts Chapter 3 - Doomsday

[K2, The Himalaya Range, on the China-Pakistan border, 8:22am 22nd December 2013]

"You want to talk about how we failed?" Doom suggested, as he passed several desks towards Ganondorf and the sleeping Aru, near the centre of the office.

"No, I want to talk about how we could have done better," corrected Ganondorf.

"Yes, that is something we need to discuss," agreed Doom, taking a left turn and making his way to the window.

"As usual, what defeated us is our lack of information," Ganondorf theorised, looking at Doom, "Yamaha kept all the important information away from non-Yamaha beings."

"Not just non-Yamaha," added Doom, "They even kept information from The Black Squad on a need to know basis, ruling out any possibility of human error. The data system the Vocaloids and UTAU kept between themselves was near uncompromisable." As head of Anti-Humour's Yamaha branch, Doom knew plenty about this. "There was no need to disclose The DeLorean's location or the Thunder Child's controls to anyone else."

"We need a system similar to this. Not so impenetrable but an efficient system among Anti-Humour for those working outside these offices. We need to keep them in the know without spreading panic."

"Hmm... That is something I can work on. The issue is that Yamaha could intercept our system even just by accident and crack our system wide open. Then panic would be free to spread."

"Yamaha has been an absolute pain this past year," cursed Ganondorf, pacing by the windows, "Is there any way to somehow make them sympathetic to our cause?"

"They appear to want to have good relations with others," noted Doom, "If we explain the situation they might listen. However, if they agree to cooperate, they will want to supervise the operation."

"The supervision would improve security and efficiency," Ganon turned to Doom, "But are you not sure of Yamah's response?"

Doom lowered his head, "Unlike us, the Vocaloids have no established canon. Our histories and futures are out there for the entire world to see. All they have to do is search the internet. The Vocaloids, however, are propped up solely by their fans. Their official material is not substantial and fanwork will willingly contradict each other. Their history, experiences, thoughts and future are completely unknown to us."

"Do you know why Doomsday chose who it chose to bring through to the real world?"

"We have our suspicions," answered Doom, turning round, back to Ganondorf, to face a meeting desk placed by the windows in the corner of the room, "But they are only suspicions so take them with a pinch of salt." He began walking towards the table, Ganondorf following behind him.

"Enlighten me."

Doom sat down at the head of the table on one of the reinforced chairs, a normal chair unable to hold the weight of his metal exterior, "We've not talked much since Doomsday."

"We only met for the first time yesterday," noted Ganondorf, dragging the second reinforced chair.

"True," agreed Doom as Ganondorf sat opposite him, "How about we start from the beginning to make we understood what happened."

"Go ahead."

"1200 hours UTC, 20th December 2012. The exact time Doomsday struck. People, places, objects, from fictional universe, dimensions, worlds, all dumped into this world at once. Now, as I said, we have some theories as to who and what was brought through. Something we're pretty certain about is that no newcomer counterparts of natives were brought through, where the newcomer is based entirely upon a native who had not been given enough room to be their own character. This is also true of places and objects, if they were not given enough room to define themselves, they were no brought in by Doomsday. We call this The Native Clause. Another theory is The Generic Clause. You may know this one, Ganondorf."

"Those who once commanded hundreds, thousands, maybe millions, were reduced to a mere dozen," Ganondorf responded with clear annoyance at how his once immeasurable army could not compete against a native military.

"Indeed. According to natives, the majority of the soldiers of big armies in fictions are generic and are not given the properties to make them distinct from each other. Palpatine's Stormtroopers, Queen Alien's children, the Helghast, the Strike Witches, all suffered a dramatic drop in number. But The Generic Clause also affected communities. Gorons, Zora, Deviluke, once proud races reduced to a few dozen, ignoring fan characters of course" Doom leaned back on the chair, "The Generic Clause was why Gensokyo gained the upper hand with only around a hundred of them and why even they struggled against the thousands of the UTAU of Yamaha. Each one of them were given the possibility to exist by their creators and fans."

Doom folded his arms, "Now, the one that's probably the beneficial to us all. The Unique Clause. It suggests that Doomsday only brought one version of each character into the real world."

"No drastic overpopulation," commented Ganondorf, "No self-imposed rivalries, no confusion."

"The universe would never have survived the chaos of Doomsday without the limitations of The Unique Clause," nodded Doom, "But again, it shares a similarity with The Native and Generic Clauses. Newcomers who are based on another but are, strictly speaking, a different person, were affected by Doomsday. For example, Link and Zelda."

Gannondorf sighed, leaning on the chair armrest, "How many of them are there now?" I lost count."

Doom thought for a moment, "Six Links, seven Zeldas, I believe. Even though they are obviously based on their predecessors they are canonically different people. Unlike your own Timeline B part."

"From The Wind Waker? Isn't he another version of me, created by a split timeline?"

"Apparently. Even if he wasn't, he is still you, perhaps in the future." Ganondorf had a disgusted look on his face but did not comment. And finally, there is a fourth clause, The Time Clause, the one we are least sure about. Even though Doomsday was the 21st December 2012 on this planet, it was not that date for the majority of newcomers. It is conjectured that Doomsday chose a time when the newcomer had just accomplished a major objective or, if they died afterwards, a time not long before, unless they became sentient undead, such as a vampire or ghost."

Ganondorf was thinking of a few newcomers and their histories, "Hmm... I can see that pattern..."

"So those are the four clauses of Doomsday. I suspect we may never understand Doomsday properly but it is a somewhat comforting that there were reasons behind the event, suggesting it might be possible to reverse it for an Anti-Doomsday. Continuing on, where each newcomer was dropped on Earth is called its Doomsday Location. For instance, my own Doomsday Location was Dublin, Ireland."

"Wellington, New Zealand, myself."

"There are no substantial theories about Doomsday Location, except that no newcomer was dropped where they would die. No non-aquatic newcomer was dropped too far underwater, for example. Otherwise, it appears to be completely random. But then, one of our greatest assets was put into force almost immediately."

"The Unwritten Law," murmured Ganondorf.

"Correct," nodded Doom, leaning forwards, elbows on the table, "The Unwritten Law was implanted into every newcomer's brain, except those immune to such changes in thought. All the Unwritten Law said was...?"

"No one should die."

"Right. Note that it's an open-ended command and not as concrete as, say, 'No one can die'."

"Do you have any idea where The Unwritten Law comes from?"

"We have a few ideas," noted Doom. The upper surface of the light blue table began to glow slightly as holographic words began to float upwards from it to form a list of names, the ones at the top in blue, the ones at the bottom being red.

"Suzumiya Haruhi," read Ganondorf, "Sasaki, Wanda Maximoff, Franklin Richards, Mister Mix-what?"

"Miks-yez-pittle-ik," aided Doom in Ganondorf's pronunciation, "Mister Mxyzptlk."

Ganondorf ignored the correction, "Remilia Scarlet, Milfeulle Sakuraba, Doctor Who, Story Teller... Ganondorf?"

"Some people would kill for that Triforce of Power," Doom suggesting innocently, "Just saying."

Ganondorf found it a little harder to ignore that statement as he scanned his eyes to some red names, "René, Matt Parkman, Lelouch Lamperouge, - Are these those that could have created The Law?"

"The ones in blue have the capability to introduce The Law themselves, with their own equipment. The ones in red are those who have the potential to do it but suffer from severe limitations, such as being too selfish, not powerful enough on a global scale and just plain slow but we cannot rule out that they came across something that could amplify their powers. Speaking of which, there are items out there that can be used by anyone to create The Unwritten Law. However, despite this conjecture, we're fairly certain it was Sasaki. It had to be someone who grasped the situation particularly quickly and could affect everyone at once at the same time. It is unlikely to be Haruhi as she was not aware of her powers, or the conflict at first, though she was known to accidentally trigger them. Sasaki is a safer bet since she was in a similar situation but was aware of her godlike powers. There is a rather interesting inconsistency though with Sasaki on Doomsday that we'll cover later. Let's continue."

"The Bad Apple Incident?"

"No, not quite yet," corrected Doom as the table began to display an image of the Earth's surface, "While a lot of us credit The Bad Apple Incident being the first punch, it couldn't be further from the truth." Red dots began littering the image of Earth, noticeably only on land.

"These are?" began Ganondorf, leaning forward to look.

"Phone calls, mostly by natives, to emergency services," explained Doom, "Most were to report suspicious or lost people, i.e. the newcomers but many were from natives being attacked or threatened by newcomers, who were too eager to prove their strength in this new world. But there was a lot of the other way round too. Ordinary newcomers lost and without most of their belongings forced to give up their remaining possessions to get out of desperate and sometimes extremely dangerous situations. Had it not been for The Unwritten Law, some lives could have been lost on Doomsday before the conflict even started."

"That would have been a pity."

"Indeed. With tensions flaring up worldwide and with too many people and creatures to manage, of course the natives would draft in the military to help the paramilitary services to cope at least somewhat. The United States with their resources tried to ease the pressure by getting newcomers acquainted in state housing, allowing the country to concentrate of other newcomers. To test this method out they found the closest non-military technologically backward foreign female to the Pentagon they could."

"Reimu," realised Ganondorf.

"Correct again," nodded Doom. The map zoomed into the eastern seaboard of the United States, labelling the Pentagon, the White House and Statue of Liberty. They found Hakurei Reimu in New York City and offered her the worst thing we could at the time. A new home."

"She lost her shrine, didn't she?" stated Ganondorf, in an attempt to show he knew some of what happened on Doomsday.

"Yes, she lost The Hakurei Shrine, the bridge between her and her gods. While is something that can be rebuilt, it cannot be replaced. Insulted, Reimu declined to move into state residence and was about to leave to search for her shrine when a nearby civilian, said to be native, shouted a sentence at her."

"I've heard a lot of stories about this, what the civilian said," spoke Ganondorf, his head on his hand in thought.

"There was and is a lot of speculation on the matter. Only ten people were present at the scene, Reimu included, and once she took over, the other nine were sworn to secrecy."

"If Reimu is choosing to keep her distance with natives, then it won't be long until this is out in the open."

"Possibly... All in all, what was said isn't important now. There were many things that could have been said for Reimu to legitimately approach the person, maybe out of anger or even curiosity but whatever was said, Reimu approached the person and American envoy group fired a warning shot, confirmed to be a rubber bullet."

"Their biggest mistake," murmured Ganondorf.

"Very true. They were not wrong about Reimu being technologically-backward," Doom tapped the table, small red tanks appearing over the map, some planes hovering above the surface. A small 3D hologram of Reimu stood on New York, indicating her position. "She had never seen a gun before, let alone see one fired. This sent her in a downward spiral against American forces of guns, tanks and aircraft, all alien to her." Some of the red dots round New York faded away. "But note," stressed Doom, "Note what happens afterwards."

Ganondorf leaned over the table to watch the movements of the models, when he noticed what Reimu's hologram was doing. "Reimu flew from New York... straight to The White House."

"Indeed. Reimu went straight to the residence of the President of The United States of America. She was guided there or already knew where to go. If the latter is true, she already knew about the President somehow, which is highly unlikely. Reimu does not care for politics and even less so for a foreign otherworldly country. Also, another thing to take of. The USA has a Defence Convention or DEFCON for short. It states if the President is ever at risk, he should be protected in a high security bunker. However, Reimu took an hour to reach The White House and yet the President did not retreat to his bunker, waiting for her at his desk."

Ganondorf put a finger to his temple, "If he had gone into his bunker, Reimu would have taken over the country anyway, making the President a prisoner."

"True," agreed Doom, sliding his right hand to the edge of the table. The map zoomed out to show the United States, revealing more red military forces across the country, "But to take over the country, she would have had to fight through the entire US Army, Air Force, certain branches of the Navy and patriotic natives and newcomers and other freedom fighters. Given the physical vulnerability of natives, death would have been inevitable. The President's actions saved lives and ended The Bad Apple Incident."

"Couldn't American newcomers fight back?"

"Of course. But something else was happening at the time," explained as the map shifted northwards to Canada.

"Miku," murmured Ganondorf again, as a hologram of Miku appeared on Toronto.

"Hatsune Miku's Doomsday Location was not far from Reimu's but while the shrine maiden was causing an Incident, the Vocaloid had hacked Canada's and the US's communication satellites to establish contact with her own kind across the world who had also done the same thing in the countries they were in. Native technology was not designed to cope with the sheer flood of robotic chatter between the Vocaloids and UTAU, causing all native use to be blocked. With the loss of long distance communication, the native military had to help the paramilitary with their operations, including surveillance."

"And I guess Miku didn't respond well to that."

Floating holograms of satellites appeared over the table. Doom pointed at one blinking over Toronto, "The Canadian Authorities monitored which satellites went down and when. While it took them a long time, until the end of The Bad Apple Incident, they managed to pinpoint the cause to Toronto and Miku."

Ganondorf frowned, "Miku stayed in Toronto?"

Doom briefly pointed at Ganondorf in acknowledgement, "Good spot. Rn made her way to The Moscow Kremlin in Russia, Len to the Union Buildings of South Africa, Meiko to the Rashtrapati Bhavan of India, Luka to the Presidential Palace of Mongolia, Gumi to the Quirinal Palace of Italy but Miku was the only intact Vocaloid to not approach a country's state office, residence or retreat until after The Bad Apple Incident and that's when she went on a rampage."

"Would it be safe to assume who did this to Miku was also the one who helped Reimu and created The Unwritten Law?"

"Hmm... Probably not," Doom concluded, "The Unwritten Law and the guidance given to Reimu and the President saved lives. Miku's actions put them at risk. She has always insisted she started the fight due to mistreatment of her kind. Something had kept Miku where she was until suddenly letting her go."

Ganondorf scratched his head, processing Doom's explanations, "Is there another god out there who did this?"

Doom leaned his elbows on the table, clasping his hands, "Something to note, Miku's situation was the opposite of Reimu's."

"How so?" The map expanded and rewound to show Canada and the United States with Reimu stood in New York, the President in Washington DC, Miku in Toronto and a Canadian Secret Service group to the west of her. As Reimu flew towards Washington, the Canadian military closed in on Miku. "Ah," realised Ganondorf, stroking his chin, "Reimu knew where the President was, who was pinned down. Canada knew where Miku was, who was pinned down as well."

"Exactly," nodded Doom, "I'm guessing, the same person did both. But then..." The United States turned red as a flapping Gensokyo flag rose from The White House. However, as Reimu was leaving the building, Miku began to move too. "Here." The animation stopped. "This is when Miku mobilised properly and successfully shut down all spy satellites, security and long range communication, including radio and phones. We have no concrete footage beyond this point but we have have a lot of witness accounts. By this time, the military had realised Miku was an android and didn't hold back, one downside to the vague Unwritten Law. This was not typical human versus robot warfare. The humans had the offensive power and the robot did not mass produce but, as always, the humans' downfall were their own reliance on technology."

"Hacking and all that?" suggested Ganondorf, shuffling in his seat the other way, "It's a rather stereotypical set of events."

"And hence, the most likely. The natives foresaw it so many times in fiction and non-fiction, of course one of the tens of millions of newcomers who could overpower native technology would do it. But anyway, it was only until then Miku made her way towards 24 Sussex Drive, residence of Canada's Prime Minister, in Ottawa. I suspect something happened to the one attempting to broker peace. Which brings me to Sasaki," Doom claimed, lowering his arms to the table, "We saw her today, stuck in a liquid form of The Hakurei Barrier, powers diminished and unable to hold a candle to her former self. Either she was caught unawares, which is logically impossible, or she offered herself to Gensokyo, possibly out of goodwill. Anyhow, this is one piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit right and makes little sense."

"With Sasaki out of the picture for now," continued Ganondorf, "Yamaha and Gensokyo were free to wage war."

"Correct," nodded Doom again as the map zoomed further out to show the whole planet surface. Canada turned into a Miku-style teal, raising a Yamaha flag. Russia, Portugal, Morocco and Australia among many others turned teal, through Australia almost immediately turned red after. "As to why the United States did not rebel against Reimu, and in fact help her, was that Yamaha was more of a threat. Reimu and her small group of friends could never stamp down on the little things in life, only able to control bigger issues. Yamaha, however, could control everything with their surveillance and technological control. As we discovered during The First Year."

"So why did some fight on Yamaha's side, including you?" noted Ganondorf, "And why was Yamaha prepared for a worldwide takeover?"

"Remember, a lot of newcomers were lost on Doomsday. Their knowledge helped reunite friends and family, though it lead some of the more dangerous ones to be imprisoned. It sort of came down to whether you wanted relatively normal life or one with your friends. As to why I joined Yamaha, apart from my homeland being in the Kingdom, I admit I was feeling selfish. I knew they would help me with my research for their own gain. About why they were ready for war, it should be pointed out that at this time all we knew about Doomsday was word of mouth from natives. Something like this had never happened before so not many of us took their word. While Yamaha knew about Doomsday than most they wanted to take some precautions. Plan for the best, prepare for the worst. Though they were rather extreme, with hindsight."

"I see. And who was this person?" Ganondorf jabbed a red Australia, "How did this person know what was going on so quickly?"

"Yakumo Yukari. Her gapping abilities made her one of Gensokyo's powerhouses. And her understanding of modern technology prevented her from being outsmarted." Gensokyo's red territory spread down through America and through Oceania as Yamaha effortlessly took Europe, Asia and Africa for themselves. But then red hotspots began appearing through Yamaha. "Yukari and her gaps at work," Doom explained, with a hint of admiration in his voice, "Unlike Yamaha, Gensokyo did not have communication and many of Gensokyo had no idea of the conflict. For example, Remilia Scarlet's Doomsday Location was Madrid, Spain, but she let Yamaha take over, not fighting back until Yukari met up with her in Germany." Germany, South Africa, China, Greece among others turned red. "A single Vocaloid or UTAU could not go against someone from Gensokyo, in most cases, and were forced out of their territories."

"But Yamaha still had the numbers."

"True. While official Vocaloids are few and far between, unofficial Vocaloids and UTAU number in the tens of thousands. When Gensokyo pushed, Yamaha pushed back." The holes in The Yamaha Kingdom turned teal again but Gensokyo held onto the outer countries including China and South Africa and began to spread their influence from there, taking India and Pakistan. "And then this was round about when The Sydney Sleeper happened."

"Yes," remembered Ganondorf, leaning forward for a closer look, "I was in the area at the time. It was a peaceful native protest against Gensokyo rule. I'm a little surprised Gensokyo even bothered to try to calm them down."

"I suspect it's because Yamaha was allowing the transmission of anti-Gensokyo news and propaganda. Natives in Gensokyo realised this pretty quickly and only produced anti-Gensokyo material, prompting Gensokyo to try to stamp it out. Of course, Yamaha prevented anything anti-Yamaha. Tell me, what did you witness in Sydney?"

"Thousands of native protesters," began Ganondorf as the table simulated what he was saying, "Along with a few newcomers were marching down the Australian highway when the entire crowd was hit by sleeping gas." A pink cloud covered the table.

"The same happened in Hong Kong, known as the Uphill Struggle. Only the Sydney Sleeper was recorder by international news and was broadcast across the world. Including Rio de Janeiro."

"Haruhi's Doomsday Location."

The table hologram zoomed out of Sydney and zoomed into Rio. "Haruhi watched the Sydney Sleeper live on television. Eyewitnesses say that Hiiragi Kagami awakened her, made her aware of her powers and lead Haruhi to step into the conflict. But it was Gensokyo that brought in Haruhi prematurely." A hologram of Haruhi in Rio, flew across the South Atlantic, the map keeping her in the centre, until she stopped over a red South Africa. "Wherever Haruhi was going, she passed over Gensokyo territory. Gensokyo had a flying ban and them being as unaware as they were, they had no idea who Haruhi was. Yamaha were in the area but smartly retreated as Haruhi approached. Haruhi soon had her own country, pushing Gensokyo out. She began making contact with own allies and those willing to fight for her. Her allies were powerful. If they weren't, Haruhi would power them up. North High was an immediate threat to both Gensokyo and Yamaha. But I believe you know a little more than me about North High during this time?"

"While North High was a threat to Yamaha in terms of relative strength," input Ganondorf, "Haruhi didn't know this at the time but Yamaha were keen to have an alliance with North High. Yamaha had hoped that Haruhi had not heard anything about them. It was somewhat true, Haruhi had only heard of Yamaha from Gensokyo's own propaganda but once she heard about Yamaha through her contacts, Yamaha could kiss their chances goodbye. And thus was the start of The Three Kingdoms."

"This was around the time I founded The Anti-Humour Society in Yamaha, which snowballed across the world. Good to see Anti-Humour in North High did their homework."

Ganondorf nodded, "People, particularly the stronger newcomers who feared imprisonment, tried to escape from Yamaha but avoided Gensokyo's heavy presence in the Americas so ended up in what came to be The North High Colony, hence the North High branch of Anti-Humour being particularly strong. I believe it was around then Yamaha was planning to close their borders as Haruhi became stronger, who was making enormous gains in Asia."

"Indeed. So they began deploying The Sonic Barrier to block Haruhi's powers." The map moved over to China, split in teal and blue, one part of the border turning a glowing teal. The glow flowed down both ways down the borderline, implying the spread of Sonic Amps. "One whole day had passed since the start of Doomsday when Reimu decided to bring up her own barrier."

"The Hakurei Barrier."

"Correct. But she chose a seemingly odd place to start it." Doom brushed a hand over the table, the map moving all the way to the Canada-US border. "North High and Yamaha were keeping each other busy in Asia, Yamaha forced to relocate some of their Canadian assets to the Far East. But the US was where Gensokyo was strongest so Gensokyo took the chance. Dubbed The United Barrier, Gensokyo and their American allies pushed into Canada. But the aim wasn't to gain territory, which they did anyway, but to give enough buffer distance and time for Reimu to erect The Hakurei Barrier. So The Hakurei barrier marked Gensokyo's territory, Yamaha struggling to protect theirs against North High." A glowing red line circled round the red land on the map. "Gensokyo were the first Kingdom to isolate themselves, though lost considerable ground against North High. Nevertheless, Haruhi was overconfident and Yamaha finished up The Sonic Barrier later, with Sonic Stations in space and White Noise underground, shutting out North High. Thus separating The Three Kingdoms, forty-eight after the start of Doomsday."

There was a pause as the map displayed the entire world, coloured red, teal and blue.

"And so, Ganondorf," continued Doom, "What could we, The Anti-Humour Society, have improved?"

Ganondorf did not answer immediately, perplexed by the open-ended question, "... Communication?"

"Lack of communication was our biggest downfall but with Yamaha and, later, North High shutting down communications there was little we could do to prevent it. We needed Reimu, Miku and Haruhi to see sense as soon as possible. With hindsight, we now know fighting was not the answer. Only one person could tame the three of them."

"Sasaki," Ganondorf guessed.

Doom nodded, "Sasaki had the power and the heart to stop the conflict and yet she didn't. We can blame her all we like but the truth is, for all we know, the world could have been ruined if had stopped the conflict. Fate is an odd thing, easy to explain, but hard to read. Now, as she listens to us conjecture what has been, she's probably wishing she could tell us." Doom placed a hand on the table, the three kingdoms shining brighter, "Sasaki knows what happened on Doomsday."

"Is that true?"

Naluri was sat up in bed in her underwear, watching the conversation between the two leaders of The Anti-Humour Society on her District 9 bedroom wall in front of her. She turned to Sasaki who was sat on a wooden chair by the bed, elbows on her knees, head down, face in her hands.

There was a moment of silence before Sasaki sighed and answered the question.

"No."

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