History NightmareFuel / DOTHACK

* As the first chapter of New Novel reveals, the ten-year-old boy that caused Pluto's Kiss didn't do it with malicious intent or anything, he simply wanted to be the first to create the kind of virus he did like a child starting a fad on the playground. Then all hell broke loose, and he was fully aware of it. Even worse, he intentionally put code in to cause the virus to self-destruct in case something hadn't gone to plan - had this not been implemented, it could've been the EndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt given that it ''armed the United State's nuclear weapons''. And to top it off, the U.S. then put him into witness protection services [[spoiler: to make use of his talents for themselves.]]

* The CC Corp, named after the developers CyberConnect2 that made the .hack franchise in the first place. At first they seem like IncompetenceInc, what with how they constantly try to cover up the glitches and abnormalities, and even ban players that dig too deeply while being fishy as hell the entire time. Then the end of the original series comes around, and afterwards [[spoiler: they experimented on the Epitaph and [[OhCrap nearly caused Cubia to revive]], which is what caused one employee to go and burn down the R:1 servers so the idiots didn't end the goddamn world again.]] They're so wildly inept at anything other than trying to cover their own asses and silence the truth, that by the time of G.U. as things escalate yet again, they almost veer straight into an apathetic routine of demonstrating just how little they care about anything other than their profit margin while the lives of their players constantly dangle in the jaws of danger. ''In almost every other series or installment.''
** How stupid are they? [[spoiler: When a crazed Sakaki threatens to cause more coma incidents and wreak havoc on the players of The World by way of blackmailing CC Corp, they silently '''[[WhatAnIdiot give him control of the game]]''' while trying to yet again save face in public and [[NeverMyFault act like nothing's happening.]]]]

* Kite is in junior high school, presumably about fourteen-years-old if one goes by extra information released after the original R1 series; even Black Rose is older than him ([[LampshadeHanging something she points out in her e-mail chain]]). And he gets to witness his best friend in real-life effectively 'die' right before his very eyes on his ''first day'' in The World without knowing what is even going on or being able to prevent it. This isn't even getting into the sheer amount of hell and trauma the poor kid has to endure over the course of the rest of the series, [[AdultFear championing a battle against virtual abominations that could put him in a coma if he ever slips up on a daily basis]] with the fate of the internet and eventually the world in the balance. The fact that, after everything is said and done, he seems to be fairly well-adjusted in a franchise filled to the brim with DysfunctionJunction speaks ''leagues'' of the kid's fortitude compared to Haseo's freakouts and the long time it took for him to get over his own problems.

** However, while the corruption is more or less aesthetic in the game, it begins to outright screw with the real world; a scan of the news application in the Main Screen of the Operating System shows that The Phases and Cubia are gleefully doing targeted attacks on humanity like wrecking traffic lights, disabling power to large swathes of Tokyo (as seen in Liminality) and likely elsewhere, and even shutting the entire internet off for large spans of time. The implication is that the Phases are actively seeking to cause an ApocalypseHow, possibly up to a Class 2.

** At the end of Part 1, [[spoiler: you triumph over Skeith, and feel some sense of accomplishment seeing as it was far and above anything else you've fought in the game up to that point. And then Kite has a rock fall on his head. He stares up, and all he can do is stare in sheer horror at the titantic behemoth of the aforementioned Cubia, beating heart of a core visible inside and a gigantic multi-eyed skeleton face as tendrils and vines grow out of its sides. The game doesn't even give you a chance to fight it; a single blast from its mouth, which alone causes the game to distort and corrupt, knocks Kite clean out from an ''indirect shot.'']]

** If that weren't bad enough, ('''MAJOR SPOILERS''') [[spoiler: the woman named Emma that Harald tried to create Aura as their sort of 'daughter'? She was a leading member of "mama" who Harald fell in love with, but was just personally exploiting the man's programming talents to her own ends. The Epitaph of Twilight? Essentially a blueprint for Harald to emulate, meaning all of The World R:1's problems were plotted out by a wealthy eco-terrorist with too much influential power, even if she couldn't have foretold how they would play out. And by all means, [[TheBadGuyWins she technically succeeded]] in her plans to cause the birth of Aura. Emma Wielant was, in essence, a GreaterScopeVillain for the entire franchise, and to top it off she may have even faked her own death and [[KarmaHoudini gotten away with all of it.]]]]

** If that weren't bad enough, ('''MAJOR SPOILERS''') [[spoiler: the woman named Emma that Harald tried to create Aura as their sort of 'daughter'? She was a leading member of "mama" who Harald fell in love with, but was just personally exploiting the man's programming talents to her own ends. The Epitaph of Twilight? Essentially a blueprint for Harald to emulate, meaning all of The World R:1's problems were plotted out by a wealthy eco-terrorist with too much influential power, even if she couldn't have foretold how they would play out. And by all means, [[TheBadGuyWins she technically succeeded]] in her plans to cause the birth of Aura. Emma Wieland was, in essence, a GreaterScopeVillain for the entire franchise, and to top it off she died in an automobile accident before the series even began, so she can't even be punished for her crimes.]]

** If that weren't bad enough, ('''MAJOR SPOILERS''') [[spoiler: the woman named Emma that Harald tried to create Aura as their sort of 'daughter'? She was a leading member of "mama" who Harald fell in love with, but was just personally exploiting the man's programming talents to her own ends. The Epitaph of Twilight? Essentially a blueprint for Harald to emulate, meaning all of The World R:1's problems were unintentionally plotted out by a wealthy eco-terrorist with too much influential power. Emma Wieland was, in essence, a GreaterScopeVillain for the entire franchise, and to top it off she died in an automobile accident before the series even began, so she can't even be punished for her crimes.]]

* Speaking of ''Beyond the World'', the entire concept of the EcoTerrorist group, "mama". To wit, [[spoiler: they're not only infiltrating governments and organizations in an attempt to [[WellIntentionedExtremist create a digital utopia for humanity so that Earth is left alone]], but they're totally willing to gun down and kill people who get in their way if they can get away with it. They are singlehandedly the highest escalation of a threat level in the franchise, and entirely human at that.]]

* Speaking of ''Beyond the World'', the entire concept of the EcoTerrorist group, "mama". To wit, [[spoiler: they're not only infiltrating governments and organizations in an attempt to [[WellIntentionedExtremist create a digital utopia for humanity so that Earth is left alone]], but they're totally willing to gun down and kill people who get in their way if they can get away with it.]] Even worse, they turn out to retroactively [[spoiler: [[GreaterScopeVillain be the cause of the entire series]] by encouraging Harald to create an AI in the first place, so that Aura could help create that utopia. And the person that caused this was none other than Harald's ''own wife'' that was so crucial to the Epitaph of Twilight.]]

** It gets ''worse''; in the ''SORA: Beyond the World'' manga, Virus Bugs appear yet again and put more people into comas. Why? Because CC Corp '''created''' them this time around to attempt to force people to buy their anti-virus software, except they GrewBeyondTheirProgramming and started wreaking havoc on society. Simple corporate greed ended up threatening a social collapse not unlike Morganna and the Phases, and the only people with remotely any proof of this was a federal agency that had no capability of acting on it themselves. It's hard to tell if they're even StupidEvil or just that apathetic in the hunt for profit.

** It gets ''worse''; in the ''SORA: Beyond the World'' manga, Virus Bugs appear yet again and put more people into comas. Why? Because CC Corp ''created'' them this time around to attempt to force people to buy their anti-virus software, except they GrewBeyondTheirProgramming and started wreaking havoc on society. Simple corporate greed ended up threatening a social collapse not unlike Morganna and the Phases, and the only people with remotely any proof of this was a federal agency that had no capability of acting on it themselves.

** ItGetsWorse; in the ''SORA: Beyond the World'' manga, Virus Bugs appear yet again and put more people into comas. Why? Because CC Corp ''created'' them this time around to attempt to force people to buy their anti-virus software, except they GrewBeyondTheirProgramming and started wreaking havoc on society. Simple corporate greed ended up threatening a social collapse not unlike Morganna and the Phases, and the only people with remotely ''any'' proof of this was a federal agency that had no capability of acting on it themselves.

* A sort of unintentional BiggerBad throughout the entire franchise is the CC Corp, named after the developers CyberConnect2 that made the .hack franchise in the first place. At first they seem like IncompetenceInc, what with how they constantly try to cover up the glitches and abnormalities, and even ban players that dig too deeply while being fishy as hell the entire time. Then the end of the original series comes around, and afterwards [[spoiler: they experimented on the Epitaph and [[OhCrap nearly caused Cubia to revive]], which is what caused one employee to go and burn down the R:1 servers so the idiots didn't end the goddamn world again.]] They're so wildly inept at anything other than trying to cover their own asses and silence the truth, that by the time of G.U. as things escalate yet again, they almost veer straight into an apathetic routine of demonstrating just how little they care about anything other than their profit margin while the lives of their players constantly dangle in the jaws of danger. ''In almost every other series or installment.''

* A sort of unintentional BiggerBad throughout the entire franchise is the CC Corp, named after the developers CyberConnect2 that made the .hack franchise in the first place. At first they seem like IncompetenceInc, what with how they constantly try to cover up the glitches and abnormalities, and even ban players that dig too deeply while being fishy as hell the entire time. Then the end of the original series comes around, and afterwards [[spoiler: they experimented on the Epitaph and [[OhCrap nearly caused Cubia to revive]], which is what caused one employee to go and burn down the R:1 servers so the idiots didn't end the goddamn world again.]] They're so wildly inept at anything other than trying to cover their own asses and silence the truth, that by the time of G.U. as things escalate yet again, they almost veer straight into an apathetic routine of demonstrating just how little they care about anything other than their profit margin.

** How stupid are they? [[spoiler: When a crazed Sakaki threatens to cause more coma incidents and wreak havoc on the players of The World by way of blackmailing CC Corp, they silently '''[[WhatAnIdiot give him control of the game]]''' while trying to yet again save face in public and act like nothing's happening.]]]

* A sort of unintentional BiggerBad throughout the entire franchise is the CC Corp, named after the developers CyberConnect2 that made the .hack franchise in the first place. At first they seem like IncompetenceInc, what with how they constantly try to cover up the glitches and abnormalities, and even ban players that dig too deeply while being fishy as hell the entire time. Then the end of the original series comes around, and [[spoiler: they ''experimented on certain individuals'' that had the Epitaphs attached to them, which is what caused one man to go insane and burn down the R:1 servers before perishing in the aftermath.]] They're so wildly inept at anything other than trying to cover their own asses and silence the truth, that by the time of G.U. as things escalate yet again, they almost veer straight into an apathetic routine of demonstrating just how little they care about anything other than their profit margin.
** Granted, a lot of the real serious problems happened due to Harold's desperate attempts to cause the birth of sentient AI with a massive lack of hindsight about the idea, but it says something that despite having a high level admin working with the .hackers and knowing just how deep the rabbit hole goes, their inclination during the [[spoiler: final battle with Morganna in the original series]] is to try to shut down the servers and hope the problem goes away. Which would either render all the comatose victims unable to be saved, or potentially even outright ''kill them'', while having a high probability of failing to contain the threat.

** Granted, a lot of the real serious problems happened due to Harold's desperate attempts to cause the birth of sentient AI with a massive lack of hindsight about the idea, but it says something that despite having a high level admin working with the .hackers and knowing just how deep the rabbit hole goes, their inclination during the [[spoiler: final battle with Morganna in the original series]] is to try to shut down the servers and hope the problem goes away. Which would either rescue all the comatose victims unable to be saved, or potentially even outright ''kill them'', while having a high probability of failing to contain the threat.

* A sort of unintentional BiggerBad throughout the entire franchise is the CC Corp, named after the developers CyberConnect2 that made the .hack franchise in the first place. At first they seem like IncompetenceInc, what with how they constantly try to cover up the glitches and abnormalities, and even ban players that dig too deeply while being fishy as hell the entire time. Then the end of the original series comes around, and [[spoiler: they ''experimented on certain individuals'' that had the Epitaphs attached to them, which is what caused one man to go insane and burn down the R1 servers before perishing in the aftermath.]] They're so wildly inept at anything other than trying to cover their own asses and silence the truth, that by the time of G.U. as things escalate yet again, they almost veer straight into an apathetic routine of demonstrating just how little they care about anything other than their profit margin.
** Granted, a lot of the real serious problems happened due to Harold's desperate attempts to cause the birth of sentient AI with a massive lack of hindsight about the idea, but it says something that despite having a high level admin working with the .hackers and knowing just how deep the rabbit hole goes, their inclination during the [[spoiler: final battle with Morganna in the original series]] is to try to shut down the servers. ''Which would kill every single coma victim.''

** Granted, a lot of the real serious problems happened due to Harold's attempts to cause the birth of sentient AI in the worst environment possible, but it says something that despite having a high level admin working with the .hackers and knowing just how deep the rabbit hole goes, their inclination during the [[spoiler: final battle with Morganna in the original series]] is to try to shut down the servers. ''Which would kill every single coma victim.''