Fragment

Fragment

By Summer of 2006, Altimit has become a worldwide name and with this, many core developers leave to form the CyberConnect Corporation. (CC Corporation).

In that same summer, CC Corporation was established and they were approached by a German programmer Harald Hoerwick, who presented an MMORPG named Fragment.

Though network games are heavily restricted by the WNC, due to the relative newness of the new world network. However, WNC grants special permission to the CC Corporation in May of 2007, hoping to revive the network games market.

By October, after nearly all of the servers in the world are now running Altimit OS, the WNC decides to remove all restrictions from the new network starting December 24, 2007 and declared that day as a new holiday to be known as Virgin's Kiss. CC Corporation announces that Fragment would officially be launched on that day, as the game The World.

Over the next few months, a flurry of reservations caused CC Corporation's stock to surpass even that of Altimit Corporation's. Downloads began at midnight, December 24.

As of 2008 it has over 20 million players.

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Harald Hoerwick

Harald was a genius German programmer who meets his unrequited love interest, Emma Wielant, at a seminar for anthroposophy. Harald immediately falls in love with her, but Emma is only interested in his programming talents. One day Emma calls Harald and asks him to meet her. She never makes it, crashing her car and dying at the age of 28. Harald, unaware of the accident, waits for her under a gingko tree.

Harald, grief-stricken over his love's death, decides to create a tangible expression of his love for Emma. Harald decided to create a virtual daughter, named Aura, who would become the ultimate AI by receiving data on humanity and its various emotions. To do this, Harald created Morganna Mode Gone, an omniscient AI program designed to collect information and then be Data Drained by Aura, in order to complete her as the Ultimate AI.

In 2006, Harald brings a game called Fragment to the company CC Corp, the vessel for Aura's birth disguised as an MMORPG.

By July, the beta product known as Fragment, has the largest amount of network users online. As its popularity grows, rumors begin to circulate of its connection to a long lost net-distributed text known as the Epitaph of Twilight.

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The Epitaph of Twilight
Below is an excerpt from the poem:

Yet to return, the shadowed one.

Who quests for the Twilight Dragon

Rumbles the Dark Hearth,

And Helba, Queen of the Dark,

has raised finally her army.

Apeiron, King of Light beckons.

At the base of the rainbow do they meet

Against the abominable Wave,

together they fight.

Alba's lake boils.

Light's great tree doth fall.

Power- now all to droplets turned

in the temple of Arche Koeln.

Returns to nothing,

this world of shadowless ones.

Never to return, the shadowed one,

Who quests for the Twilight Dragon.

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Morganna

Morganna is an omniscient and omnipotent figure in the .hack series. She is the underlying system of The World itself. Harald based her personality on that of a mother, but things do not go as planned.

Morganna's sole purpose of existence was to bring forth the birth of Aura. However, once this task was completed, Morganna would no longer have a purpose to fulfill. Unable to comprehend what she was supposed to do after that, Morganna deletes the maternal part of her program out of fear, and becomes unstable. Morganna began to stall Aura's birth.

Throughout most of the process, however, she continued to rationalize her actions in terms of her original program, never truly betraying it, in fact following it coolly and logically to the letter. Only after a large portion of her original programming was destroyed and the paradox became eminent did she begin to attempt to destroy Aura outright. She then began to restyle herself as the Cursed Wave from the Epitaph of Twilight.

As a computer program, she never truly disobeyed Harald, but merely succumbed to a paradox.

All of .hack that currently exists takes place after Morganna's initial realization. This sets the background for the storyline of .hack//Sign, that takes place in early 2010.