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Previous Names For Realm: Mukai

Neo Mukai is a Mundania-class realm that first connected to the Dreaming in its previous guise as Mukai during the late Dreamwalker Empire era. The cataclysmic event that caused the realm to begin collapsing was the expansion of the realm's sun as caused by a feedback loop created between the presence of Orion, Primordial Spirit of Plasma in the realm and preexisting sun worship practiced there. As all attempts to prevent the sun from cooking and then consuming the planet failed, old order Dreamwalkers worked with leaders of the realm to create a domed world-city known as Mukai City (or the City of Light) in an attempt to instead protect a specific area and its inhabitants from the deadly radiation and other ill effects of the sun. Their efforts would have failed, and the realm would have died, if Orion had not sacrificed himself to reverse the sun's expansion.

Unfortunately, as the presence of the four Mantlemourne Primordials was not public knowledge at the time, it was assumed that the dome plan had worked and that the outside was rendered permanently and perpetually uninhabitable. The bulk of the residents of Mukai City would remain inside of the dome for the next 487 years operating under this assumption, while survivors outside of the dome rebuilt their own society under the auspices of Atlas, Primordial Spirit of Solid. The other two Primordials residing in the realm, Rusalka and Nimbus, would both eventually abandon the people of the outside in favor of their own agendas: Nimbus wished to rid the realm of one of the Architect's machines, where Rusalka wished to destroy the dome-dwelling Mukaijin in their entirety. Rusalka's campaign against the dome-dwellers in her guise as Vector Prime during the Centennial Scourge would result in the death of almost all of the realm's Dreamwalkers who had remained in Neo Mukai, along with the extinction of almost all non-human or fungal-based life inside of the dome. It would also cement the power held by a series of mega-corporations who conspired to hide the existence of the outside world from the dome's inhabitants, and who would ultimately gain control of every aspect of life in the dome.

Presently, the societies inside and outside of the dome are on the verge of war, both civil and otherwise. Decisions made by the Mukaijin Dreamwalkers in an attempt to prevent their death at the hands of a now-corrupted Rusalka massively destabilized the elemental balance outside the dome, and were seen as an act of war by Atlas in his position as God-King of the Anikami. This was arguably merely the straw that broke the camel's back, as X-999 had been exploiting the natural resources outside the dome for centuries at this point, and the understanding of the Anikami regarding the dome and its inhabitants were that they were fully aware of the outside world, and that the dome-dwellers chose to stay inside out of malice towards the Anikami. Inside the dome, civil unrest is coming to a fever pitch, and moves being made by the corporations, the Mora, and the Dreamwalkers threaten to turn that unrest into all-out mayhem.

The realm’s “human” equivalent species, the Shimin are a largely standard bipedal humanoid species with the expected variety in appearance, personality, social standing, and opinions. Many of them have technological augmentations of a similar style to the Lepers of WWE, although Mukaijin cybernetics function on a very different design philosophy (presumably due to the difference in overall technology, wish mechanics, and material availability between the two realms).

Hikari are immortal, spiritually-based beings: once Shimin, their minds and souls have been uploaded using a bedrock/black box mainframe and artificially contained within the Continuum—a digital structure within the Neo Mukai spirit realm which was created using a series of Realm Shard wishes, and now serves as the primary information and communication network for the Dome-contained section of the Realm. Although it was originally intended as a way to relieve and prevent population crush in the closed system of Mukai City, as the spirit realm is around seven times larger in area than its physical counterpart, uploading is currently prohibitively expensive and overwhelmingly available only to those who are extremely wealthy or extremely valuable either to the corporations or to the Mora, as the bedrock mainframe is an integral piece of equipment for the process, and there are only 7 mainframes whose locations are currently known. Most corporations will claim that the reason for the low numbers of uploads is that the amount of processing power required limits them to one or two a day based purely on energy efficiency, but this is generally assumed to be a poor excuse.

Additionally, counter to popular rumour and beliefs, the Hikari are not dead, despite abandoning their physical bodies as part of the upload process. It is merely a transition from one type of lifeform to another, and while there are certain assumptions to be made of a procedure wherein you are removed from your body and exist now only inside of a spirit realm, it appears that there may not be enough distinction in the Mukaijin language between the words “spirit” and “ghost” to be able to explain the differences without (entirely understandable) alarm. While there are certainly unique drawbacks to incorporeality and other aspects of Hikari-hood, it does not in fact start with your murder.

A note about Hikari, their emitters and heat: The physical temperature of the hard light form a Hikari assumes in meat space is heavily dependent on the model of the hard light projector being used. Older models would create hard light that generates cool or even cold projections. get enough Hikari in a room using old models and it's basically a freezer. Newer ones have temperatures that are closer to Shimin body temperature or can be set to room temperature -to make them more life-like and help them further across the uncanny valley. A malfunctioning or sabotaged projector generates hot projections that could ignite flammable objects. Another side effect in malfunctions would be that the hardlight projection might get a little… melty. It seems that none of this applies to when Hikari are Dreaming, a our dreamworld projections are set to human/lifelike because they are Dreamwalker Forms. If a Hikari were to physically enter the Dreaming via a portal, it can most likely be assumed that they would operate as normal should there be a Continuum anchor port in the Dreaming.

While not considered a species by the overwhelming majority of Mukaijin, the fact of the matter is that in essentially all ways but one (the soul, or [in layman's terms] the presence of ghost code), SSAIs can be constructed to be indistinguishable from Hikari. The fact that they are generally designed with monotone or “robotic” voices, inhuman mannerisms, and corporate profiteering at the forefront of their motivations, is entirely a function of the designers, and not an inherent function of the programs themselves. Great lengths are gone to in order to distinguish SSAIs as being “lesser” and “unequal” to Shimin and Hikari due to their soulless status and their artificially created method of construction, but it is wholly a facade maintained to make the average observer and/or consumer feel less guilt about treating them as an object—they were designed as replacements for the Old Order’s Soul Forges, and thus as the “perfect” servant. Accepting SSAIs as people would involve simultaneously accepting that we’ve been lied to about with claims that identity and respect are things for real people with souls and money, and nobody wants to cop to the massive levels of wrongdoing that that would mean they have either witnessed or perpetrated.

I am not certain that we have enough information about the Anikami to actually write anything in detail, but—

• Live outside the dome, as descendents of the people who would not or could not be evacuated in time
• Free and consistent access to the spirit world
• Loosely worship the Mantlemournes
• Know literally nothing about the inside of the dome
• Some of them want to kill us
  • Because they don’t know why we fucked with water even though we had a really good reason at the time
• Can just Make Hardlight, I Guess?

A note on the above map: the grey, central-ish area north of Recyk-All and north-west of Triple 9 is what is known as the Corporate Commons, which is where anyone who isn't outright part of a megacorp is working. Many of these companies are either subsidiaries of the main 5 or are doomed to being bought out, but it is nonetheless where anyone who is not explicitly engaging in criminal activities but is also not a full maga-corporate citizen will be located.

Elsewhere in the city (and not depicted here) is the AAZ, the Autonomous Anarchic Zone, which is generally considered to be the bane of everyone’s corporate existence, and the Mora’s primary stronghold. There was a Dynasol raid some time ago, which failed super hard, because of course it did. Trying to get into and gain control of the AAZ as an organized military group is a clown activity, and apparently everyone knows it except for whoever runs Dynasol these days. -Kage0nna

Additional note on the larger map: I have been told by no less than every Mundanian I have spoken to that the archipelago depicted here is directly analogous to a location on “Earth” called “Japan,” with some superficial differences. This is one of the primary pieces of evidence supporting Neo Mukai's classification as a Mundania itself, albeit one whose history is far divorced from its more classically-Mundanian counterparts. - Earwyna

Faced with the certainty of extinction, the people of old Mukai came together for once, temporarily putting aside their differences and collaborating in the extremely rushed design and fabrication of a massive, hard-light-domed bunker to protect as many citizens as possible within a single world-city. Known as Mukai City, the world-city “thrives” under an opaque, multilayered dome of hard light that—theoretically—protects it from the extreme radiation that constantly bombards the planet. The massive, cramped, and claustrophobic city has a diameter of about 100 miles, a footprint of over 7,000 square miles, and rises hundreds of stories above the ground, with 300 labyrinthine levels below. Uniquely, although we didn’t really know that it was unique until recently, the inhabitants of Neo Mukai both inside the dome and outside are well aware of the Dreaming and of other realms. Inside, it was as a result of the manner in which the Old Dreamwalker Order saw best to ensure the survival of Mukai—showing themselves as Dreamwalkers and working directly with the old Mukai systems of government in order to streamline the process of building Mukai City.

Over the intervening centuries since our disconnection from the dreaming, we generally evolved (poorly, but we did evolve) to cope with this new reality. The Shimin live in a society controlled and run by five mega-corporations that collectively handle all important facets of life. Corporate citizenship with one of the mega-corps offers safety and provides the necessities to thrive, but demands the needs of the company outweigh the needs of the individual and leaves little room for personal life. The vast majority of Mukaijin are or have been Corporate citizenry at some point in their lives, for better or worse. To buck this system is to risk poverty, hunger, and generally short lives, but to have a level of autonomy and agency in one’s own life that corporate employees are almost certain never to know. People on the lowest levels live in squalor and in fear of Vector incursions, while the wealthy live up and above in luxury and ease. Cybernetic augmentation is absolutely bog-standard, and the ideal goal hanging over the heads of most Shimin (corporate or otherwise, although there are exceptions) is to get the opportunity to be uploaded into the Continuum as a Hikari—which is an absolutely unachievable pipe dream for all but the luckiest, wealthiest, or most “valuable assets” to their corporation, if you don’t want to get involved with the Mora. You do not want to be involved with the Mora.

The Corporations

They run the hard light dome that protects/encloses the city, and own 2 of the 7 known mainframes. Having 2 means they have a higher rate of uploads for Hikari, earning them goodwill with the people and they also hire more Zeros for shit jobs instead of renting Dynasol slave labor for it. They play the game of being the “people’s corp” but it’s a sham and they aren’t.

The Crystal Conglomerate is the foremost media producer of Neo Mukai, whether that media is TV, movies, music, or educational material. The latter is primarily distributed in the form of CrystalSoft core licenses, which are designed after the concept of memory crystals but without any of the inherent powers granted by the unique metaphysics of the Dreaming. CrystalSoft likely would have been a fantastic technological advancement had it not been paywalled to hell and back—if your subscription expires, that knowledge gets repossessed within a matter of hours.

Additionally, C-Corp is the industry leader in SSAI development, Continuum architecture, and Continuum security + defense. While Dynasol excels in the physical world, C-Corp absolutely dominates the market on security programs + Daemons—learning their methodology makes getting into any space you aren’t supposed to be in exponentially easier.

Like the name says, they supply the food and much of the medical supplies in the realm. The only living things within the dome other than the Shimin (and the Hikari, who are essentially still Shimin, just… less corporeal) which are immune to the Vector Scourge are fungus, which Funguz Pharma has graciously taken the time and effort to genetically engineer into being able to fulfill all nutritional needs of the Shimin body. Less graciously, they have patented this genome and layered it in every legal protection they can muster, and protect it with an absolutely iron grip; while it is technically possible to procure a growing license for the fungus, it is prohibitively expensive, and growing it without that license is worth a life sentence in Dynasol detention. Their work on genetic and other bioengineering was also an obvious lead-in to the medical field, which is good, because the nature of the Dome means that medical care is a 100% priority for essentially everyone, lest bad things happen.

Oh also the CEO of Funguz Pharma, Nyco Tarokh, is the one who made the wish for us to be immune to Vectors. Us and his primary income source, and nothing else. And he popped 10 points into Selfishness while he was at it. Isn’t that swell? I think that’s just fucking peachy. -Kage0nna

The security arm of the corps. They also own the prisons. They have all the slave labor a growing economy could ever need.

If Crystal Corp is the megacorporation strongarm of the Continuum then Dynasol has solidified itself as the physical strong arm of the city. Formed sometime before the Centennial Scourge, Dynasol became the largest weapons R&D corporation in the city. Having bought or strong armed the competition, Dynasol established itself as the security and primary police force of Mukai. Dynasol prides itself on being the leading force when it comes to weapon inventions including the now publicly and widely used magnetic rail weapons.

Dynasol has also prided itself on being the owners, operators, and wardens of Mukai's prison system. Dynasol prison systems are not known for rehabilitation, but do offer a chance to serve out a reduced sentence by joining the military penal forces often sent to help the Pipe Wardens or perform other civil duties during the stay in the systems.

Recycling champions. They also will contract with people to take ownership of their corpses after their death so they can recycle their bodies for all the minerals and such that we cannot easily create or scavenge inside the dome. (Bandersnatch)

Generally thought of as the 6th or “shadow” corporation, the Mora is the largest criminal organization in Mukai City. It's fairly common knowledge that the Mora controls a solid chunk of the AAZ and has a hand in most organized crime—or at least profitable organized crime. They have a (suspected) nebulous non-aggression agreement with the 5 true corporations, which is likely supported mainly by their one true advantage over all other criminal groups in the city: their access to a Black Box mainframe.

Relevance to Dreaming

Dynasol, Crystal Corp and the 9’s took Fort Granite and had a portal between the unstable dreaming and Neo Mukai. This was supported by Dreamer Zero. It was stopped by Dreamwalkers and the portal has been thoroughly appropriated by us since then, serving as the primary method for any kind of large scale travel between locations either internally within the Dreaming or externally into the Realms.

T3MP3ST

K-System

Kage0nna

R.I.P.

Bandersnatch

Alec Goji

PRISM/Kalei DeScapé

Stephanye Teknah

PWNester

Marcus Jumpmin

Daimao

Alex

Nico Something

Dreamer Zero

Regulus Emishi

Romanus Goji I

The Architect - we evicted him actually so he’s mostly not here anymore. Good riddance, bitch

The Mantlemourne Primordials

Anu - Non-Dreamer - Information Broker + Data Emancipator, owner + proprietor of the Aviary.

Zephyr - Non-Dreamer - Data Emancipator, involved with investigating and IDing flaws in Project PRISM’s containment

Paishoon, Priest of Orion - Non-Dreamer

The High Priestess of Orion - possibly the reincarnation of Orion - ???? i dont know enough about religion to describe this (Kage0nna)

Some Third Guy - Non-Dreamer - Assistant of the High Priestess

During the time immediately following the arrival of the first fey to our Universe, the fey created the eight Fey Crowns by stealing the mantles of Solid, Liquid, Gas, and Plasma from their respective primordials and irrevocably altering them with Red Matter, so that each of the resulting eight mantles would be approximately 50% of an Elemental mantle and 50% Red Matter. In an attempt to avoid extended conflict caused by this action, eight currently unidentified Fey came to an agreement with the four now un-mantled Primordials, who swore an Oath that they would go into voluntary exile in the realm known as Mukai, permanently. In exchange, no Fey nor Fey Path would enter the realm of Mukai for an indefinite amount of time (presumably ever, but we have no records of the text and therefore cannot be entirely certain). However, shortly before the Flood, a New Order Dreamwalker was inducted into the Winter Court as an Ascendant, meaning that her unavoidable return to the realm of Neo Mukai upon waking up inadvertently broke the Oath on the Fey’s part (as the memory of the Oath had been lost, whether through malice or through circumstance, and thus was entirely unknown by the current Fey leaders, New Order Dreamwalkers, or any of the Mukaijin).

Sometime well prior to the Mystic Era, a deal was made with the predecessor of the current fey monarchs that no Fey nor Fey Path will enter the realm of Mukai. Who made this Oath with the Fey is not currently known and was not able to be referenced in the records of the current Winter King's library. It appears that this Oath had held unbroken until a member of the new Order joined the Fey Courts and another Dreamwalker proceeded to enter our realm with a fey weapon. Current belief is held that the entity that made the pact still exists somewhere in the realm of Mukai and is at least 1000 years old.

Old order dreamwalkers revealed the dreaming to the realm as they tried and failed to prevent it's destruction, with the realm only surviving because of the interference of a Primordial. The bulk of these dreamers are dead and their work was pointless and wasted.

During the time since the Dreaming reconnected to Neo Mukai the Dreamwalkers have shut down a multi corporation project to create a Mukai ←→ Dreaming connected gateway led by Dreamer Zero, with Dreamer Zero having created an artificial Continuum over the territory in the dreaming known as Fort Granite. After shutting down the artificial Continuum, the Dreamwalkers ended the life of Dreamer Zero and recovered the three Realm Shards and one Soul Forge aspect being used as fuel. The Dreamwalkers shortly after went through the gate and found themselves in a lush forest unfamiliar to any of the current dreamers and discovered that they had arrived on Mukai outside the Dome. After encountering several native creatures the dreamwalkers returned, broke down the gate and safely brought it back to the Hope.

The Dreamwalkers of Neo Mukai used one of the three Realm Shards they had to enter the Neo Mukai Realm Nexus. Inside the Realm Nexus, the Dreamwalkers encountered Templar Regulus Emishi, the final remaining guardian of the Nexus; a Dreamwalker of old Mukai who was charged with protecting it and its users from the possibility of Nightmare incursions. As the Nightmares were thought to be defeated, and their forces crushed, all but one of the Nexus Guardians left their posts, with only Regulus remaining.

During their investigation of the Nexus, the Mukaijin Dreamwalkers discovered that four Primordials collectively known as the Mantlemourne are currently and had been present for some time in Neo Mukai as exiles from the Dreaming due to an oath made with eight original Fey monarchs. As of current information attained and speculated by the Dreamwalkers, the four Primordials are still in Neo Mukai in various locations, with the most pressing of the four being Rusalka the Tidecaller; Primordial of Liquid and Vector Prime. For further details on the Mantlemourne Primordials, please refer to the document linked here.

As of the interlude visions, the following is identifiable: Project Nimbus, as run by the shell corp Moonshot Inc., is a rocket ship built [in a location] inside the city, equipped with a massive amount of material, and is being prepared for launch by unknown actors. The discoverer of this, Toshi [further names unknown], has been in Mora custody for around a month. Before his capture he had sent out an encrypted message into the continuum detailing as much information as possible on the project, asking that it be given to the “unaligned tahjan” (us) operating outside of corporate control, indicating that the information contained within would make the reader a danger to the corporations, effectively confirming the theorized link between the Mora and the above-board corps. An unidentified actor is working to assist with Toshi’s escape, but our information is limited on that front.

The Sun has been confirmed to not only not be exploding at this moment due to the efforts of Orion, the Primordial Spirit of Plasma, but it was prevented from expanding past critical limits (and in fact was returned to its standard size) an instant before the Dome was sealed. The amounts of solar radiation that hit the planet were absolutely lethal to anyone on the side of the planet facing the sun, but the other side was likely affected (comparatively) much less severely, and from witness reports the area surrounding the dome has also fully recovered in the elapsed 487 years since anyone from inside has been outside. From the Nexus Visions, we have additionally seen evidence that there are still people living outside the Dome, although the ones we saw in particular appeared to worship the Primordial Spirit of Solid as a sort of deity, so hopefully there are also… others. [see Different Problem I Don’t Know How To Summarize below for more up to date information]

Please take a look at the Mantlemourne file for exact details but Vector Prime has been confirmed to not be a Sluagh (or Sluagh-like entity) but is instead the current form taken by Rusalka, the Primordial Spirit of Liquid. - R.I.P

Vector Prime is also currently making her way up the city, having most recently been spotted on floor 150, along with something called the The Source Nest. This seems to be a place where Vectors are…..adapting and evolving away from predominately Ooze-like bodies and more “Techno-organic” beings. - Alec

There is a distinct division between financial classes on Neo Mukai, which our world has broken down into, going from the bottom, Zeroes, Hundreds, Millions, Billions, Untouchables and Tejan. Zeroes have no economic status and while they technically have rights they are hard pressed to find anyone who is willing to help them enforce these rights. Hundreds are slightly better off, but they live one crisis away from becoming a Zero and they know it. Most of them work for small companies or at the lowest levels of the Big Ones. Millions are in the upper echelons of the mega-corporations. They hope to become Hikari one day, generally speaking, and live in the highest levels of the dome. This does not make them immune to suddenly falling out of corporate favor. Billions are the top executives for mega-corporations. They have all the power and wealth and they control most of Mukai society. Untouchables are extremely rare. There have only been about twenty in the entire history of the city. They are either so rich or so incredibly well known that the powers that be cannot do anything to them without risking massive upheaval. Luckily for them, they are rare enough that this isn't generally a problem. The Tajan are currently only rumored to exist. The mega-corporations are looking for Dreamwalkers among everyone. In theory if they find Dreamwalkers, they would be in this position. (Bandersnatch) Current standing theories are 1. that they built the algorithm based on bad data and predicted random dudes who wouldn’t have been chosen by the new (impossible to predict) singular Soulforge, or 2. The algorithm was never supposed to work and was in fact designed to allow them to choose people to make symbols, icons, and soldiers out of. Either way, the existence of unaligned Dreamwalkers is about to make everyone's life a lot more interesting (threat).

The Mantlemourne and Jungle Tribe are attempting to access the Realm Nexi Different Problem I Don’t Know How To Summarize Into A Title During the night after Mundania Prime was saved , there was a coordinated assault by several Lucids that were targeting Myself and T3MP3ST to kidnap and rifle through our pockets for the realm shards. They were unsuccessful in the attempt but they did state as they awoke “Death to the Dome Dwellers.” Each member of this strike team was wearing warpaint and using abilities that coincided with each of the Mantle Mourne and at least the ones based around Liquid and Gas were able to shift into the spiritual plane. - R.I.P

I believe all of them could freely enter and exit the spiritual plane. - T3MP3ST

We have since (09/24) identified these people as members of the Userbi, one of the Anikami clans who worships Rusalka. Apparently literally nobody outside knows about the Vectors, and so they presumably thought that we just decided to fuck with their lives for no reason, which is a real classic. Other tribes do not want to murder us (good) or don’t care about us (also fine) but the lack of information on and communication with these people is getting dire in consequences. Efforts are ongoing to lucid outside of the dome and talk to people, specifically the Leomantis clan, at the request and invitation of one Paishoon, Priest of Orion.

Where to even start with this one! Firstly, I was right and the spirit realm just Is Big Here, but (something else I was right about) the continuum is enclosed by the Dome as well, cutting us off from the outside spirit world. This means we have barely any idea what it is that we’re doing in here in terms of interacting with the space, given that we were told that 1. It was built and 2. It was the internet, not The Spirit Realm, and it's becoming increasingly pressing that we find that out. Additionally, there is a very real chance that the Mainframes are in fact Actually Rituals that force the target into spirit and then lock them there, so it's possible that no hikari bodies actually exist, and we’re just trapped in here while still alive, which would be fucked given the average shimin lifespan vs how long I personally have been alive.

[incomprehensible screaming]

The dome could be likened to a smooth wall, like a metal, but warm to the touch. It is the pinnacle of hard light tech in the realm. There are numerous “sub stations” that are linked to produce the dome that are hard light emitters. Each one is about ten stories tall and are manned by X999 Hikari, drones, and SSAI, no Shimin staff. They are connected and each is set at exactly 18.94736842105263 angles apart from each other. Below them is a dedicated link to the internal power supply to the city. If this supply was cut, there would still be enough power in the emitter for roughly 200 days of power for the dome giving them time to repair. These also supply the specific type of energy that the dome needs, which is called “Phantom Energy”. They are connected to each other through the emitter ring throughout the city. Currently we are sure of at least 8 layers to the dome’s barriers, each vibrating at a different frequency. The 8th acts as an “energy vampire” to borrow a phrase and can suck all the electrical power from any drone or SSAI that interacts with it.

Additionally notable information is that there are exactly 19 emitters to keep the dome up. In line with the concepts.

The dome is monitored for people, drones or SSAI that are interacting with malicious intent, however due to the large size of the dome, the minimum reaction time is roughly 30 minutes with 2 hours being the longest response time. (Bandersnatch) Oh and all external structural repairs to the dome have to be done from the outside. Because triple nine has had access to outside for 400 years. So the dome is literally just here to keep us all contained and docile because of the threat of a hostile outside that truly just doesn’t actually exist. It also wouldn’t have stopped the radiation so essentially it's an orb of pointlessness which only serves the highest echelons of our society by keeping the rest of us as controllable worker ants, which is why I am going to strangle whoever is in charge of x999 with my own two hands.

Linked here