Persona 3: Echoes

Alright...I've decided to make the thread for discussion.

Here it is.

Please be sure to participate. This is too important to ignore.

Since there hasn't been any activity lately (due to the ongoing discussions which everyone is strongly encouraged to join in the Rework thread) I figured I might give everyone a small omake.

Or rather...three.
First, some context...


The entity known as Igor chuckled softly. Mirth and pride mixed in his voice.

"This time…" he spoke to the nameless pianist, whom he had taken to call Nanashi "This time will be the one. The new design of the Velvet Room is perfect!"

"Haa..." the blindfolded man looked resigned and defeated "I can't deny that this has a chance to succeed, but I am not certain this is a good idea all the same…"

"Ho ho ho…Nanashi-kun, have a little more faith!" the long nosed master of the Velvet Room crossed his arms and looked at the stage with pride "Since the floor does not disappear anymore, there is absolutely no way for us to fall!"

The pianist just shook his head. Best to get this over with...

"Now…let us begin...!"

Igor rose his hands and the curtain began to lift. Ominous music played in the background, indicating the summoning of a Persona into the Velvet Room! A great void full of stars appeared on stage.

…And the two were lifted off the ground, torn from it and sent flying towards the opened hole in space.

"I knew something would go wrong all the same!" the pianist screamed as he was sucked into the inky blackness of the sea of souls "I just knew iiiiiiiiiiiiiiit...!"

"I didn't expect that to happen at all!" the hunchbacked man replied, also screaming "Nanashi-kuuuuuuuuuuuun...!"


Igor sat comfortably at one of the front line seats.

"Ho ho ho..." a snapping sound was heard through the entire concert hall "This time I've outfitted the seats with seatbelts!"

"Yes…I noticed that…" the pianist seemed like he had just given up trying to convince his master to stop.

"This plan cannot….No. It will not fail!" Igor spoke passionately "Furthermore, every seat has been provided with the seatbelts, so even our guest will be safe!"

"Is that so?" the blindfolded man saw a glimmer of hope for the first time "Then, unlike Tatsuya…"

"Indeed!" the hunchbacked man was positively giddy.

The young man, Reo Ornstein, began to materialize close to the back seats.

"Heya!" he greeted them "I just ranked up enough to get a new Persona. Think you can show it to me?"

"Of course, dear guest" Igor replied quickly, then turned to face the nameless pianist "This is it, Nanashi-kun!"

"Yes, master" he could do nothing but sigh. With any luck, things would turn out better...

A minute after, everyone was seated and with their belts fastened.

"Hmm…" the old man skimmed through the pages of a large book "Ahh, I see. Very well…"

Igor rose his hands and the curtain began to lift once again. Ominous music played in the background, indicating the summoning of a Persona into the Velvet Room! A great void full of stars appeared on stage.

The seatbelts did their job and all three individuals remained on their seats.

Then a creature began to emerge. A green colored thing seated upon a golden chariot.

A huge, massive, pulsating, throbbing…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! MY EYES! SWEET INFANT JESUS, WHAT THE SHIT!? GOD, IF YOU ARE REAL THEN SAVE ME!"

Reo gazed upon the summoned Persona in abject horror. This was supposed to be the manifestation of the friendship between him and…HER?!

Impulsively, Reo unfastened the seatbelt and was instantly sucked into the inky blackness of the sea of souls.

Both men were silent. The pianist lowered his head and shook it as his hunchbacked master scratched the back of his own head.

"Of course…" the blindfolded man looked like he was about to cry "Of course something would go wrong…"


"This time I have perfected the method!" Igor slammed his palm on the pianist's back, who bent forward due to the strength of the blow.

"Master Igor, please!" the blindfolded man pleaded with the old man "Isn't this enough!?"

"Nanashi-kun, you don't understand..." Igor looked at him with manic glee "This time I tested it before telling you!"

"…Really?"

"Yes, really!" Igor nodded enthusiasthically "Behold!"

Igor rose his hands and the curtain began to lift yet again. Ominous music played in the background, indicating the summoning of a Persona into the Velvet Room! A great void full of stars appeared on stage.

This time, the seatbelts were not even needed!

An incubus was summoned!

"Ahh!" the bald creature exhaled "Man, why'd you guys summon me? There aren't any hot chicks here!"

"No way! It worked!" the nameless pianist rose his arms to the heavens and postrated in raptorous joy "It worked! Halleluja! Halleluja! Halleluja!"

"And that's not the end of it!" the hunchbacked man laughed "Now we can open a portal to any location in order to observe it!"

With a snap of his fingers, the three bore witness to a scene quite out of place in the Velvet Room. A football field where college students were stuggling to catch up to the person with the ball.

"Snazzy! It's like a TV!" the Incubus spoke up "You got any porn on this thing?"

"Master, is there any danger of anyone seeing or hearing us?" the blindfolded man asked, deciding to ignore the Persona's words.

"They would need to be aware of the Velvet Room for that to happen" Igor replied while snapping his fingers, having taken the comparison of the portal with a TV and nothing else from the male sex demon.

The snapping continued every now and then, the master of the Velvet Room deciding to start "channel surfing".

He was shocked when the scene the portal showed was that of a nude woman bathing right next to a small waterfall.

"That's...!" the pianist wishpered in horror "Master, change the channel! Quickly!"

But it was too late.

"Woah...I'd totally tap that ass!" the Incubus exclaimed loudly "What a killer bod!"

The woman turned to face the portal.

She knew about the Velvet Room. It was a source of much anxiety to her, so how could she not?

The young woman smiled.

It was a pure smile, one holding no malice whatsoever.
A smile so pure it would not be mistaken to call it 'divine'.
So pure it was unnatural.
So pure, in fact, that it clearly threathened their existence.

"Master..." the pianist looked at the hunchbacked man with a grimace "I want a vacation"

"Sure..." the old man nodded.

"...I'm fucked and not the way I would like, am I?" the Incubus knew just how badly he messed up.

At this, Takako Nasu's smile grew wider.

" SAMSARA! "

Once more, I ask that you join in on the discussions of the Rework thread. For now, I came up with a system that can fix the snail's pace that the quest is going at.

There's three variants for it.

The Original Variant: At the end of every Sunday, you will set up your schedule for the next week. Whenever you have to go to school, you'll get 2 actions per day (Afternoon and Night). When you don't, you get 4 actions (Morning, Midday, Afternoon and Night).
So: Normal school week = 2 x 6 + 4 = 16 actions.

The bobbananaville Variant: Basically the same, but school days give you one action and every other day gives you 2. This one was brought up due to the overwhelming ammount of votes that the Orignal requires you to make.

The Compromise Variant: Taking into consideration that @bobbananaville has a pretty good point, but I think more time is better, I made this variant.
Just like the Original, when you have to school, you get 2 actions. When you don't, you 4. Unlike the Original, however, the intervals are 3 days long.

At the end of this post, you may vote on which one to use.

Now, I'll tell you the changes that will be present regardless of which variant you pick:

• Cleaning will be removed, but only on a mechanical level. Sometimes you'll get to see co-op cleaning and Persona Advice, as well as Persona Cleaning, but from now on you don't have to worry about cleaning up yourself.
  
  
• Reading will remain, but won't consume any time. You will have to choose what book to read at the start of the vote and it will happen automatically, however you will receive less points to your social stats.
  
  
• You can no longer go see movies on your own. You won't be allowed to use it to grind for Social Stats.
  
  
• If you go buy things at the Shops, you will not consume any time so long as you perform an activity in the same area. The Velvet Room will count as a Shop, albeit a special one.
  
  
• You can still return to the dorm early, allowing you to study, rest up for a random bonus or play Devil Busters Online (The MMO. I'm not calling it Innocent Sin Online for plenty of reasons, the bigest being the whole Sumaru City Fiasco)
  
  
• You cannot work on Social Links during the night. When you hang out with a Social Link Holder, you no longer need to choose a place to hang out at.
  
  
• NEW FEATURE!
  You can decide to invite a group of people to hang out together once per week; for this you will need to choose a location. These people don't need to be Social Link Holders, or even be acquainted with each other. When you invite them, you'll get to see them interact with each other and you.
  
  If you bring Social Link Holders, you will get closer to all them, but you will receive less points than if you were hanging out individually and you cannot Rank Up during these events.
  
  Also, try to keep in mind the relationships between them and the point in the story at which you decide to invite these people, as well as the places you go to. If things go wrong, you might not get any bonuses.
  
  
• Quite predictably, trips to Tartarus are a night-only activity. Once Reo and the rest of the party is accustomed to combat, trips to Tartarus will become automatic unless you want to perform SCIENCE! (once available) or when you have a fight against something other than the mooks.
  
  
• When something of moderate importance happens, you'll see the event play out and have the opportunity to act. Same happens in every visit to the Velvet Room, since you can just go to visit the residents and talk to them if you so wish it.
  
  
• Whenever something more important happens, the schedule is completely ignored until the situation is resolved. Once it is, you get to choose whether you want to continue with the plan as it is in the schedule or if you want to change it.
  
  
• After the votes are made on the week's plan, you get to see a post summarizing the results of your choices. If you went to a shop (other than the Velvet Room), there'll be a small part in the post describing the things in stock and a sentence saying something to the effect of "You decided to buy..." followed by vote options. After that is something like "Satisfied, you leave the store" and the summary will continue.
  
  Spoiler: Shitty Example

  +===============+
  April/29/09
  Afternoon
  
  I went to Power Records and found:
  -An MP3
  -A colector's edition of Pepper and Haven
  -A Silent Comedy LP
  I bought...
  []Write-in bought articles
  And all was good
  
  +===============+
  April/29/09
  Night
  
  I decided to study, because Academics was my dump stat and I need it for the exams.
  
  [Your Academics has increased]
  
  +===============+
  
  [] Votes for the next time

How does all that sound?

Now then, which of the 3 variants would you like to use?

[] The Original Variant
(Pros: Greatly increases the pacing of the Quest.)
(Cons: 16 votes seems like an overwhelming ammount of votes and might stop people from voting.)

[] The bobbananaville Variant
(Pros: Quest will move at incredible hihg speed. Less things that you need to vote on keeps things clean.)
(Cons: Stat growth will need further rebalancing. Very fast incredible hihg speed pacing might be detrimental.)

[] The Compromise Variant
(Pros: Less things to vote while making use of every bit of time.)
(Cons: 3 days is faster than current speed, but not as much as 1 week.)