History Fanfic / HopeOnADistantMountain

 * RidiculouslyHumanRobots[=/=]DeceptivelyHumanRobots: The AIs fall somewhere in between the two tropes. They can ''look'' almost entirely human by modeling themselves on a player's expected reactions, unless they stop caring or want to make a point. Then they instantly become incredibly unsettling. They also tend towards SpockSpeak when dumping large amounts of exposition.

* GenericDoomsdayVillain: Invoked with Sim!Junko. When she finally appeared, it wasn't as a character ([=NPC=]!Junko died when she was speared and was only retroactively swapped with Mukuro when an operator thought it'd make a good plot twist) but as the avatar of the narrative kernel; she was the Mastermind, and ''nothing'' more. All the personality-switching was just a consequence of Tacitus attempting to make her scarier at the cost of a consistent personality, she was obsessed with despair because the course's purpose was to test if she could make students cross the DespairEventHorizon, she lacked a real motive because if she had one Naegi could exploit it, and she killed herself because she had no purpose outside of being the mastermind.

* CatchPhrase: Naegi still uses his from the game, and some other people indulge in them as well. It goes completely unremarked, so apparently that's just something people do from time to time.

* CoincidenceMagnet: The game's truth bullet system gets deconstructed when Asahina's argument against Naegi is her surmising all the random pieces of evidence he just happened to remember was likely set up that way. Kirigiri later says his presenting so many coincidences at the same time is further evidence to him being a constructed being like Izuru Kamakura, who could remember any number of meaningless facts to defend his existence as a supposedly normal person. That explanation is supposed to be far more likely to her than a normal kid competing with the Super Duper Highschool Sleuth in her own field.

* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: In the D-course sim, the reason murders were inevitable is that the AI was able to [[TheAllSeeingAI pull information from all the NPCs]] so it could always set up a semi-plausible murder scenario.

* RidiculouslyHumanRobots[=/=]DeceptivelyHumanRobots: The AIs fall somewhere in between the two tropes. They're almost indistinguishable from humans, unless they're trying to make a point or just don't care. Then they instantly become incredibly unsettling. They also tend towards SpockSpeak when dumping large amounts of exposition.

* SchrodingersGun: During the D-course sim, one of the researchers exploited this by changing the identity of the Mastermind before it was revealed. When asked why, he justified it by stating this PlotTwist created a better story, as [[spoiler:the Mercenary]] was simply "too obvious."

* TheAllSeeingAI: The simulated students only ''looked'' like they were acting independently. In reality, they were all controlled by Philemon, who was in turn in communication with Tacitus, so they could create plausible murder scenarios. Monokuma's motives were guaranteed to work on ''someone'' because Philemon knew what would cause each student to break; they weren't so much to foster chaos (though upsetting students to make them easier to manipulate later ''was'' a secondary goal) as to enable specific chains of events leading to murder (i.e. Chihiro needs to be killed off for his StoryBreakerPower. Tacitus creates the following narrative: Dark Secrets are threatened -> Mondo is made unstable by the reminder of Daiya's death -> Chihiro talks to Mondo -> Mondo murders Chihiro in a fit of rage).

* GenericDoomsdayVillain: Invoked with Simulator Junko. When she finally appeared, it wasn't as a character ([=NPC=]!Junko died when she was speared and was only retroactively swapped with Mukuro when an operator thought it'd make a good plot twist) but as the avatar of the narrative kernel; she was the Mastermind, and ''nothing'' more. All the personality-switching was just a consequence of Tacitus attempting to make her scarier at the cost of a consistent personality, she lacked a real motive because if she had one Naegi could exploit it, and she killed herself because she had no purpose outside of being the mastermind.

* DifficultySpike: The final audience participation puzzle in the first trial, which mimiced the puzzles in the games, was vastly more difficult than any that came before. It was the first to have two extensions (though these were already revealed due to the format), required noticing an extremely small contradictory detail, and [[spoiler:it was also the first time in the trial that one statement had to be used against another.]]

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Toko is not Genocide Jack, and Junko isn't the Ultimate Despair. The real Hope's Peak may be corrupt, but they're not stupid enough to let a SerialKiller and a terrorist in because they thought being a murderer or HopeCrusher counted as a talent.
** Alter Ego only exists in the sim. Laptops simply don't have enough power to run a complex AI.

* OneLetterName: UpToEleven. One chapter ends with an email exchange between two unidentified people, the second of whom has just a full stop (.) for an email ID, whereas almost ever other time the characters' names are used.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: {{Deconstructed}}. [[spoiler:Certain members of the board of directors]] thought Naegi wasn't ''worthy'' of being a SHSL student, and put him into the sim in hopes of scaring him off. Instead, Naegi ''beat'' the unbeatable game, proving himself more than worthy to attend and changing his title from SHSL Luckster (a rather disparaged talent) to SHSL Hope. However, he's still left suffering from PTSD and self-doubt.

** Toko is not Genocide Jack. The real Hope's Peak may be corrupt, but nowhere near enough to let a ''known serial killer'' attend under the pretense that she's ''really good'' at murdering.

* PlotArmor: Naegi had it in the simulation. The mastermind wasn't allowed to kill him directly unless he despaired, which forced it to find a way to save his life when it impulsively tried to kill him.

* UnwinnableTrainingSimulation: D-course simulations are designed this way, but Naegi's actions eventually led the [[ArtificialBrilliance Adaptive AI]] to generate a win condition.

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: {{Deconstructed}}. [[spoiler:Certain members of the board of directors]] thought Naegi wasn't ''worthy'' of being a SHSL student, and put him into the sim in hopes of scaring him off. Instead, Naegi more than proved his worth by beating the unbeatable game. However, he's still left suffering from PTSD and self-doubt.

* TheAllSeeingAI: The simulated students only ''looked'' like they were acting independently. In reality, they were all controlled by Philemon, who was in turn in communication with Tacitus, so they could create plausible murder scenarios. Monokuma's motives were guaranteed to work on ''someone'' because Philemon knew what would cause each student to break; they weren't so much to foster chaos (though upsetting students to make them easier to manipulate later ''was'' a secondary goal) as to enable specific chains of events leading to murder (i.e. Dark Secrets are threatened -> Mondo is made unstable by the reminder of Daiya's death -> Chihiro talks to Mondo -> Mondo murders Chihiro in a fit of rage).

* AIBreaker: Makoto managed to break the 'Mastermind' AI in the sims by refusing to present evidence against Kirigiri, making himself look like the killer instead. The AI couldn't kill him because the Mastermind isn't allowed to kill the player before making them succumb to despair (normal class trials don't count, but since the "murder" in this case was a frame job by the Mastermind, it fell under the 'Mastermind kills the player' definition), and couldn't ''not'' kill him because he was voted as the culprit in a trial. The problem was solved by having Alter Ego appear and save Makoto, but this caused the AI to get stuck on the 'Kill Makoto' goal. The Mastermind couldn't use the other students to do the job, because Makoto befriended them so thoroughly that it would be a major character break for them to kill ''anyone'', much less him. To make him fall into despair (so he could be killed) the Mastermind used dangling and then taking away hope, in the form of the Escape Switch. And in order to make that plan work properly, the potential escape had to be real- and thus the simulation now had a definite 'win' condition.

* AIBreaker: Makoto managed to break the 'Mastermind' AI in the sims by refusing to present evidence against Kirigiri, making himself look like the killer instead. The AI couldn't kill him because the Mastermind isn't allowed to kill the player before making them succumb to despair, and couldn't ''not'' kill him because he was voted as the culprit in a trial. The problem was solved by having Alter Ego appear and save Makoto, but this caused the AI to get stuck on the 'Kill Makoto' goal. The Mastermind couldn't use the other students to do the job, because Makoto befriended them so thoroughly that it would be a major character break for them to kill ''anyone'', much less him. To make him fall into despair (so he could be killed) the Mastermind used dangling and then taking away hope, in the form of the Escape Switch. And in order to make that plan work properly, the potential escape had to be real- and thus the simulation now had a definite 'win' condition.

* TheAllSeeingAI: The simulated students only ''looked'' like they were acting independently. In reality, they were all controlled by Philemon, who was in turn in communication with Tacitus, so they could create plausible murder scenarios. Monokuma's motives were guaranteed to work because Philemon knew what would cause each student to break.

* WetwareCPU: The simulator runs on an incredibly powerful supercomputer, but it also uses the brains of people using it to render graphics (allowing the human brain to fill in details it expects to find) and occasionally to come up with plot points or character traits.

** For example, the first murder: Sayaka snaps and decides to kill someone. The original target was Makoto, because he trusted her, but Makoto befriending her renders it out of character for her to go through with it, so she must select a new target. For a murder to take place, her target must a) accept her invitation, and b) either be incapable of escaping or turning the tables, '''or''' ready to kill Sakura after she fails. If Sakura had made the choice in reality, she had several choices that she had reason to think might respond, but actually wouldn't or would have simply stopped her without killing her afterward. The AI, on the other hand, knows that Leon would answer Sakura's request ''and'' would impulsively decide to kill her if she failed to kill him, so Sakura addressed her letter to Leon.