Persona: HEAVEN (Persona/Sword Art Online/Isekai Multicross)

"Oh, so you already know you're second-rate compared to Kayaba going by that shield, good that makes things easier. He's the biggest madman of the modern age and everyone's still trying to rip him off, including you--even when you didn't have to. You could have been the man who saved everyone from Kayaba but you're so damn insecure that you flushed it down the toilet for nothing. You could have beaten him by just accepting that you're nothing instead of pretending to be what you're not. And we all know why you did it; because deep down you already know the truth, that you'd find some way to fuck it up unless you were pretending to be something you're not.

"Don't you see, Sugou? Don't you see how you're contradicting yourself?"

Okay, here's another pitch. This one going for a mundane angle all but convincing Sugou that he's already admitted defeat in his heart before the fight even started.

[X] Plan: Death of the New Gods

[X] Write-In (Originalilty and Knock-Offs)
-[X] After Nephren-Ka reveals the weaknesses of Sugou...laugh. Laugh as loudly as you can.
-[X] "So this is what you have to offer, Sugou Nobuyuki?! Yet again, you prove to be inferior to Kayaba in every single way. For a whim of fate, Dual Blades and the Holy Blade, yet again crossing. A liberator and a tyrant. But...for all that man was a huge pain in the ass, he had his virtues. Kayaba had fair play, he put commitment in his paper as the surprise villain. And, in his final bout, he bet his life fairly against the man I mimic -someone that is better than me in almost all regards -skill, power, morality, pick one. But I admit it. He's someone that I admire with all my heart, and I will be open about that, even if it's more likely for him to despise my existence."
-[X] "You...you are always the second banana. You are slimy, a bastard. You hate being Sugou -your wish is to be OBERON, the fae king that can't do no wrong...but even now, I see your true personality. For all the holliness you emanate, the only thing you will ever be king of, is a king of thieves, of ripoffs! The spirit of Aincrad lives even in this shitty world because it's skeleton was ripped to make the foundations of this land, a delusion of a mad man."
-[X] "But...but you forget one thing, dear OBERON, lord of dreams. You see...a dream ends when the dreamers awake. And I will be the one to cause this."

[X] Plan: Twilight of the Gods

[X] Write-In (Originalilty and Knock-Offs)
-[X] After Nephren-Ka reveals the weaknesses of Sugou...laugh. Laugh as loudly as you can.
-[X] "So this is what you have to offer, Sugou Nobuyuki?! Yet again, you prove to be inferior to Kayaba in every single way. For a whim of fate, Dual Blades and the Holy Blade, yet again crossing. A liberator and a tyrant. But...for all that man was a huge pain in the ass, he had his virtues. Kayaba had fair play, he put commitment in his paper as the surprise villain. And, in his final bout, he bet his life fairly against the man I mimic -someone that is better than me in almost all regards -skill, power, morality, pick one. But I admit it. He's someone that I admire with all my heart, and I will be open about that, even if it's more likely for him to despise my existence."
-[X] "You...you are always the second banana. You are slimy, a bastard. You hate being Sugou -your wish is to be OBERON, the fae king that can't do no wrong...but even now, I see your true personality. For all the holliness you emanate, the only thing you will ever be king of, is a king of thieves, of ripoffs! The spirit of Aincrad lives even in this shitty world because it's skeleton was ripped to make the foundations of this land, a delusion of a mad man."
-[X] "But...but you forget one thing, dear OBERON, lord of dreams. You see...a dream ends when the dreamers awake. And I will be the one to cause this."

[X] To Deconstruct A False King
-[X] Opening speech: "And so the false king of fairies has deigned to show himself and take a stand against those who oppose him. Have you finally been able to muster up enough courage to delude yourself that you can fight us and win, believing yourself to be the hero and us the villains? Alas, it won't be enough to stop us. It is high time for you to be reminded that you are not the hero of this story and that you are very much still human, with all the vulnerabilities and fallacies that entails, Sugou Nobuyuki."
-[X] Follow-up: "A sword and a shield are your weapon of choice? And backed by heavy armor? You must truly be desperate if you have to emulate the fighting style of Kayaba in order to even have a chance to defeat us. But you know it, don't you Sugou? Deep down, you know that Oberon is naught but a lie, what you wished to be, rather than what you truly are, a man whose achievements, possesions and powers don't truly belong to him, but rather are stolen from others, for you are incapable of winning by your own efforts. Your paradise is naught but a pale shadow of Kayaba's work, mixed in with a small part of human history and mythology. You know that you could never measure up to Kayaba, and yet you persist in trying to prove yourself better than him by emulating him and his work. He's the biggest madman of the modern age and everyone's still trying to rip him off, including you--even when you didn't have to. You could have been the man who saved everyone from Kayaba but you're so damn insecure that you flushed it down the toilet for nothing. You could have beaten him by just accepting that you're nothing instead of pretending to be what you're not. And we all know why you did it; because deep down you already know the truth, that you'd find some way to fuck it up unless you were pretending to be something you're not. Don't you see, Sugou? Don't you see how you're contradicting yourself?"
-[X] After Nephren-Ka uses Three-Lobed Burning Eye: "How ironic, that your deepest desire is something that your so-called paradise can not grant you. Is your harem truly capable of washing away the knowledge that Rinko is forever out of your reach?"

Made my own attempt at verbal sparring with Oberon. Opinions are welcome.

Hmm, I'm still liking the idea of dragging down OBERON from his perch and making him engage with us as Sugou. Thematically I feel like it fits with the "tear him down from his HEAVEN."

As for SEED and Ragnarok - here's my pitch on the angle I'm seeing: Forcing Sugou to think of himself as Sugou instead of OBERON is bringing about the end of the Gods. It's a bit unconventional, but the SEED wants to tell a story and I don't see why it wouldn't find a twist to how it is done acceptable - it already cobbles together disparate mythologies together and a "prophecy twist" where the destruction of OBERON is a matter of self-acknowledgement rather than literal physical destruction is right up that alley IMO. And like, I feel like the teardown would be suitably dramatic/climactic. Furthermore, setting ourselves up as a God kinda runs counter to the idea of bringing an end to the Gods (but like not entirely because there are survivors in Ragnarok, more on this in a sec) replacing one with another. This way we "defeat" OBERON by forcing Sugou to confront the fact that it is a delusion he created for himself to avoid facing reality and thus bring about the end of the gods in totality.

Now, to bring this back to Ragnarok some more and the fact that at the end of it there are still survivors. I think we can lean into the idea that it represents a cycle with Ragnarok signalling the end of one and the beginning of the next rather than literal survivors (in fact SEED saying that our success is a literal end of service for ALO bolsters this idea I feel) by pointing out that once his delusions are torn down and this game ends, most people aren't even going to care - the victims, yes, of course - but for most they're just going to move onto the next VRMMO (aka the next "cycle") just like they moved on from the SAO Incident to keep on playing other VRMMOs.

Finally, this is less about what we say to Sugou but more an observation on SEED. When we talked with it a few days ago it stated that Ragnarok was the wish of the people and Hiyori internally noted that was incorrect and that it was probably only the Fangs of Fenris who did (and Sigurd. Poor Sigurd.) However, we do have the play of releasing the video of the accusation to sway the players of ALO to really wish for it. I don't think that's the play right at this moment but if the ALO players make it here, or a suitable moment comes up, or things go poorly for us I think it's a potent secret weapon if it can turn player sentiment harshly against Sugou/OBERON in the moment. Narrative effects aside, maybe a massive debuff?

Anyway, I'll try to put out my own pitch here as an actual vote. It's similar to the idea I proposed before, but just an actual vote now. Hiyori turns the vicious up to 11 - as if Endou was basically a friendly chat - to break Sugou.

[X]Plan: Twilight of the Gods
[X]Write-In: Sinking Into The Sea
-[X]"A God? Really? Because all I see here is a manchild trying to run away from the fact he's a loser who can't do anything but be a shitty copy of Kayaba. (Gesture to the surroundings) "This place? Alfheim? The World Tree? Just a discount Aincrad and Ruby Palace - complete with the shithead who couldn't just keep his fantasies to himself playing the part of final boss. ALO? Just a shitty, buggy knockoff of SAO. Hell, it's running on Kayaba's SEED even - you couldn't even find a shred of originality in your copying! Actually, that being the case, how'd you fuck it up so badly? If nothing - and I sure mean nothing - else, Kayaba didn't let cities fall into the goddamn abyss and have, what, three Excaliburs running around. How do you screw up a system literally designed to run on auto-pilot? Well, whatever, once this shitty game is put out of its misery everyone will just move on to the next one. Oh and that get-up there with the sword and shield? Are you so obsessed with Kayaba that you tried to design your character around him? I mean, you do you, even if all 'you' are is an incel who can't even measure up to someone even when he's copying their homework. Time to wake up, Sugou Nobuyuki. Time to come back to the real world where you're nothing more than a corporate drone looking to blame everyone else for your own failures just like almost everyone else. "
-[X] (If/When Hiyori learns about Rinko) (Mocking laughter) "Ohhhh, so that's what it is. I was wondering how The Flash fit into all this. She didn't seem to fit the pattern - you basically being a bad Kayaba LARP. Sure, she was second-in-command of his guild but this whole Titania thing felt a bit much. But I see now! You're just one of those white knight creeps who thinks he 'deserves' someone because he was a 'nice guy,' huh? Well, can't say I'm surprised! Though you kind of blew that carefully crafted image when you tried to choke her don't you think, you sick freak? So, all this bullshit here - the chuuni RP, the power trip, all of it - is because you can't get over the fact that your crush dared to love someone else, huh? Asuna is just your replacement Rinko because even here you can't have her. Aww, but that can't be right, can it? The SEED's chargen has got to be better than that, so I think the truth is that you know you didn't deserve Rinko just like you know you don't deserve Asuna - or any of this. (Mock pity) Poor, poor Sugou. Even in his dreams he knows he was just a placeholder, isn't it sad? (Serious) Grow the fuck up."

Willing to take suggestions, editing advice, anything really lol. Plan name is a reference to how after Ragnarok the world sinks into the sea and metaphorically we're dragging Sugou down with it.

Alcor said:

Willing to take suggestions, editing advice, anything really lol. Plan name is a reference to how after Ragnarok the world sinks into the sea and metaphorically we're dragging Sugou down with it.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Seems fine, if hyperfocused on tearing down Kayaba's delusions of godhood and his obssession with Kayaba. I think it could be extended somewhat to focus on some more attack avenues (you may want to check out other speech proposals, like my "To Deconstruct A False King" write-in or Zog's attempts at making a speech for other avenues of attack, like, say, implying that he's a coward who dragged his feet when it came to facing us in combat until he couldn't afford to avoid us anylonger or trying to turn his world against him by making him believe that it is not he who's invulnerable, but us and so on).

Like always I think there's a monofocus on Kayaba when there's other avenue of attacks as well.

Alcor said:

If nothing - and I sure mean nothing - else, Kayaba didn't let cities fall into the goddamn abyss and have, what, three Excaliburs running around. How do you screw up a system literally designed to run on auto-pilot?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

For criticizing game design I think it would be better to point out that a majority of the playerbase is brainwashed to think this is all real. And why did he do that? Does he know his game is so shit that people would rather play something like YGGDRASIL instead if he didn't brainwash them. Basically build on attacking his ego by putting in some hits in the now on his own terms.

Alcor said:

I mean, you do you, even if all 'you' are is an incel who can't even beat a corpse even when he's copying their homework.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I really think this line should be cut. Besides running on the big thing is that this holds a big contradiction in that Kayaba's dead when in this AU everyone knows he escaped justice and got away which gives Sugou an out.

The hyperfocus is somewhat by design - the goal is to focus Sugou on it - but I'll take that under advisement. As for the game design bit, again, the main throughline of the whole thing is to keep hammering in how he's a discount Kayaba which is why I opted for directly comparing it to her SAO experiences, with the added hit that even an SAO survivor is grudgingly admitting that at least SAO was better run, even if it was literally a death game. Otherwise I could have launched a number of game design criticisms on it - some have even been raised in-universe like how game balance is kinda totally ruined by classes and features being tied to different races.

I don't particularly mind cutting that line but I didn't think Kayaba escaping justice was a known thing. I thought he has been MIA - and has been since the SAO incident began. In canon I don't think they ever found him during SAO (having been watched over by Rinko in seclusion) and while they key difference between canon and the quest is he did survive I thought from the perspectives of everyone else, including Hiyori, his current status is unknown. Testimony from the Floor 75 boss raid party would say his Heathcliff avatar was killed by Kirito so that in theory he would have been killed by the NerveGear but it'd be an open question for everyone if he actually included himself in that. His actual status would be a matter of debate in the quest's universe I'd have thought - whether he died at the end of SAO or escaped is still at large.

Long story short, I don't think it's a contradiction? That said I forget if we've been informed on Hiyori's thoughts on whether Kayaba really died or not.

Edit: Changed the line for now to avoid any mention of Kayaba being dead just because I think removing the line in its entirety would require me to do some more editing to restore the flow of the whole thing that I don't have the head for right now lol.

[X] Write-In: "Kayaba's swordplay, using Kayaba's tools, in Kayaba's world, and you say you're a God? Your only claim to originality is inventing a way to brainwash women who would never in a million years sleep with you. You know delusional isn't a good look on top of pathetic, right Sugou? Can't hack it in the real world so here you are, throwing a tantrum about being called your character's name in your knockoff game?"

My offering. Keep it crass, keep it short, make his clinging to Oberon be a losing move. And save the deep dissection until we have 3-eye data.

Glau said:

keep it short

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Considering how much the fight revolves around verbally deconstructing Sugou/Oberon, short speeches aren't going to cut it. We need something of considerable length that strikes on as many sore points and vulnerabilities in Sugou's psyche as much as possible.

ThatGuyWithIdeas said:

Considering how much the fight revolves around verbally deconstructing Sugou/Oberon, short speeches aren't going to cut it. We need something of considerable length that strikes on as many sore points and vulnerabilities in Sugou's psyche as much as possible.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Depends on how long the round of combat lasts, tbh. If we're expecting multiple phases, then one long speech just blows most of our 'ammo' early, and then we're left figuring out what's left to even sling at his ego.

On the other hand, if we're expecting one long phase, then a short speech is indeed insufficient. Best compromise, I think, would just be multiple mid-length topics, switching whenever each topic starts to lose effect.

ThatGuyWithIdeas said:

Considering how much the fight revolves around verbally deconstructing Sugou/Oberon, short speeches aren't going to cut it. We need something of considerable length that strikes on as many sore points and vulnerabilities in Sugou's psyche as much as possible.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

I will reserve the right to paraphrase winning votes if it's very long, if only because I have to write in a coherent way to keep in line with it being a fight.



I did a quick manual count and it SEEMS to be accurate.
Basically, the Dialogue Write-in vote is still an open field.

FWIW, while I was definitely intentionally focusing on comparing Sugou to Kayaba as the main theme there, I do feel I weaved in a number of other sore spots Sugou has demonstrated in there - his inability to make or maintain a relationship is touched upon in the Rinko subsection by bringing up how he felt entitled to her love, many of his feelings of inadequacy about Kayaba are called out that he's not some unique case but that a lot of people have similar issues (left unsaid: most of them don't start brainwashing people to 'deal' with it.) It's just not as blatant as the Kayaba stuff which is intentionally front-and-center because it's a self-acknowledged sore spot. I actually feel the most cutting blow is at the very end when Hiyori suggests that actually deep down he knows he's using that as an excuse and that he realizes he's actually the one at fault for his situation - not Kayaba, not Rinko, him.

afreaknamedpete said:

I will reserve the right to paraphrase winning votes if it's very long, if only because I have to write in a coherent way to keep in line with it being a fight.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Oh, 100%. I feel like any write-in of mine should come with the disclaimer of "feel free to edit/paraphrase/cut into tiny pieces in the event this wins because I am just the worst and I am genuinely sorry for that and it reflects very poorly on me that that was the best I could do even knowing I have a problem."

[x] Write-in
- [x] Start laughing at him in an exaggerated manner. "Really, Sugou, this is your grand plan? A cheap knockoff of Kayaba's last stand? Can you do anything without copying his work?"

Could just take the highlights from the votes and discussion in general and use it as a guideline for how the characters tear his ego apart?

Like my idea about projecting his real-world face and news articles, etc.

I really think we need to discuss about what approach we're going to take for the speech. We're mostly just posting our own ideas and are just splitting things up and a good chunk of them are us hitting Sugou with Kayaba. We all need to discuss things more and agree on what we want the speech to be since we're running in circles at this point.

Things that people seem to agree on being in the speech:

Rip into Sugou for being a sucky Kayaba copycat
Use Rinko as a sticking point once Nephren-Ka gives us the relevant knowledge

Anything else?

theguynamedwafer said:

Things that people seem to agree on being in the speech:

Rip into Sugou for being a sucky Kayaba copycat
Use Rinko as a sticking point once Nephren-Ka gives us the relevant knowledge

Anything else?

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Could we try to really dig into his inferiority issues by driving in the point that he absolutely wouldn't have gotten this far if it wasn't for the funding of RECT and his boss, his superior? Fluctlight research has got to be expensive and he really didn't make a world on his own. Maybe we can try to say that he was only hired out of pity even if its not true?

Edit: We could also remind him about that apology meeting a while back. What kind of god gets pulled into a meeting by his boss to apologize and answer questions for a rich family?

Edit2: Forgot to type hired

My plan was based around crushing Sugou's ego by showing him a real god but that hasn't gained any ground.

For angles I think have potential we could target that the only reason ALO is a successful game is because a majority of its playerbase is brainwashed. And more importantly, it's been pointed out multiple times by people in-story just how counterproductive all of Sugou's crimes are. He's already won at life and he would have continued to get everything he wanted and be seen as Kayaba's better if he was just more patient so on top of everything else he's not a god he's an idiot as well.

On the personal side of things since we're summoning an avatar of Nyarlathotep I really, really want Hiyori to have a line about Sugou contradicting himself. It was Nyarly's catchphrase in the old games.

[] A Consensus of Opinions
-[] Opening speech: "And so the false king of fairies has deigned to show himself and take a stand against those who oppose him. Have you finally been able to muster up enough courage to delude yourself that you can fight us and win, believing yourself to be the hero and us the villains? Alas, it won't be enough to stop us. It is high time for you to be reminded that you are not the hero of this story and that you are very much still human, with all the vulnerabilities and fallacies that entails, Sugou Nobuyuki."
-[] Follow-up: "A sword and a shield are your weapon of choice? And backed by heavy armor? You must truly be desperate if you have to emulate the fighting style of Kayaba in order to even have a chance to defeat us. But you know it, don't you Sugou? Deep down, you know that Oberon is naught but a lie, what you wished to be, rather than what you truly are, a man whose achievements, possesions and powers don't truly belong to him, but rather are stolen from others, for you are incapable of winning by your own efforts. Your paradise is naught but a pale shadow of Kayaba's work, mixed in with a small part of human history and mythology, and its popularity is a sham, for its popularity was only obtained through brainwashing. And even then, you've failed in making a stable game, if You know that you could never measure up to Kayaba, and yet you persist in trying to prove yourself better than him by emulating him and his work. He's the biggest madman of the modern age and everyone's still trying to rip him off, including you--even when you didn't have to. You could have been the man who saved everyone from Kayaba but you're so damn insecure that you flushed it down the toilet for nothing. You could have beaten him by just accepting that you're nothing instead of pretending to be what you're not. And we all know why you did it; because deep down you already know that you'd find some way to fuck it up unless you were pretending to be something you're not or you stole somebody else's work to pass as your own. Don't you see, Sugou? Don't you see how you're contradicting yourself?"
-[] After Nephren-Ka uses Three-Lobed Burning Eye: "How ironic, that your deepest desire is something that your so-called paradise can not grant you. Is your harem truly capable of washing away the knowledge that Rinko is forever out of your reach? Or is Titania supposed to be that replacement? So, all this bullshit here - the chuuni RP, the power trip, all of it - is because you can't get over the fact that your crush dared to love someone else, huh? Asuna is just your replacement Rinko because even here you can't have her. Aww, but that can't be right, can it? The SEED's chargen has got to be better than that, so I think the truth is that you know you didn't deserve Rinko just like you know you don't deserve Asuna - or any of this. (Mock pity) Poor, poor Sugou. Even in his dreams he knows he was just a placeholder, isn't it sad? (Serious) Grow the fuck up."

Attempted to make a fusion between my own speech, Zog's speech and Alcor's speech. Opinions on it are welcome (alternatively, feel free to take my earlier drafts for a speech and modify/use them in any way you can think to help make a speech).

I'm honestly really leery about voting for anything that's more than two paragraphs. It's a fight, not a debate over drinks.

I'm just gonna chime in here since I want to write the update, I'm gonna officially close at midnight EST tonight. Usually I just write the update when I feel there's a quorum and discussion has died down, but since there isn't consensus I'm gonna announce vote closure in advance. Don't feel the need to drop everything in one vote, it is going to be a multi turn fight, and you can run out of ammo so to speak against Sugou.

But anyways, I'm probably just going to go with the plan with the most votes instead of trying to Frankenstein stuff together, since again, there will be more turns.

Since I'm not getting any other opinions aside from speech being too long...

[] First Strike
-[] "And so the false king of fairies has deigned to show himself and take a stand against those who oppose him. Have you finally been able to muster up enough courage to delude yourself that you can fight us and win, believing yourself to be the hero and us the villains? Alas, it won't be enough to stop us. It is high time for you to be reminded that you are not the hero of this story and that you are very much still human, with all the vulnerabilities and fallacies that entails, Sugou Nobuyuki."

Voting for the first part of my fusion attempt on all the thrown speech ideas.

[X]Write-in: Simple and Clean

If length is an issue I can see if I can shear mine down some more. Oh, just got the "new posts in the thread" message. Okay, in that case I'm going to omit everything that relies on a Nephren-Ka scan because that hasn't happened yet and can be done next turn. I'll stick to opening with a salvo, again mostly on Kayaba, a shot at him being a coward who has only shown up because we gave him no other choice as advised, and finally a Edge Punisher reference by reusing Hiyori's one-liner (a catchphrase is born?) from before. Though I'm imagining it being used more seriously and grim than its debut.

[X]Plan: Twilight of the Gods
[X]Write-In: Sinking Into The Sea v2.0
-[X]"A God? Really? Because all I see here is a manchild trying to run away from the fact he's a loser who can't do anything but be a shitty copy of Kayaba. Alfheim? A shadow of Aincrad. ALO? Just a shitty, buggy knockoff of SAO. That get-up there with the sword and shield? Discount Kayaba. Just a coward that's been hiding in his power fantasy until we brought the literal end of the world to your door. Time to wake up, Sugou Nobuyuki. Time to receive your punishment."

[X]Write-in: Simple and Clean
-[X] Redefining everything you did wrong as success? The logic of a true loser, Sugou. Hell, that's what you always seem to do. You realized that that your own game sucked worse than SAO so you brainwashed everybody to keep playing it. And the only reason why people are coming to help you is because we bribed them. And you know why we did it? To make sure everyone knows how worthless you really are when we rip away the curtain."

Okay, trying again, as always I feel that we mono-focus too much so I'm going for a new angle. Here, we start by throwing his hero speech back in his face, compare ALO negatively to SAO with room for expanding in the future, and ending with the implication that we set the stage to our benefit and we hold all the cards so we can take our speech in any direction we want in the future.