App for Save the Earth (version 2)

[vanisland]

OOC Information:
Name: Awe
Are you over 15? Yep.
Contact: awestriker

IC Information:
Name: Her original name is Mir Teiwaz Artonelico (formerly Mir Fehu Eolia Artonelico); Later on she would take the alias "Jacqli" (although some fans insist she be referred to as "Jakuri"). Her reincarnation will go by Miranda Atmiller (in real life).
Canon: Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia & Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica (She was in both.)
Age: Mir is 382 (but looks 15). Miranda is 25.
Preincarnation Appearance: Weirdest hair dye job ever... It could be a decoration but... how does your hair have a perfectly round red spot in it when viewed from behind?
Any differences: Looks about the same, but her hair is straight black and her eyes are brown instead of reddish-pink. As for clothing, she dresses less revealingly, but still in a vaguely provocative manner. Her preference for dark clothing does not change. She is also missing her Installer Port, which is an intricate tattoo-like thing just below her navel.
Preincarnated History: Where do I even start.

Mir was not born to any parents at all. She was made, and furthermore made to be a weapon - an emotionless Reyvateil (singing magic girls, but the first ones were all artificial), blessed with twenty times the power not in spite of, but because of that fact. Regardless, she developed emotions anyway, and she created a song of peace.

The lab techs were not pleased. Seeing her as nothing more than a defective product, let alone a person, she was imprisoned in the Silver Horn, a system designed to control Reyvateils. But that turned out to be kind of a bad move, since she kind of took over the place and started hacking the computer systems of Ar tonelico since she was now embittered and raging at humanity. Eventually all-out war breaks out between Mir (and some other Reyvateils who decided they didn't like humanity anymore) and the Tower Administrator, Shurelia (an old friend of Mir's who she saved this one time), who had decided to side with the humans. Eventually the humans figure out that in a straight-up fight, Mir would win since apparently Reyvateil specs matter, so Shurelia seals up Mir (with some help from some magic people) for the safety of humanity. This doesn't quite work either, since Mir just moved her soul into the Tower itself, which gave her the ability to keep hacking even with an inactive body. So they build a machine that keeps her soul sealed as well and things finally quiet down.

A few centuries later, the Reyvateil who is supposed to be actively maintaining the seal on Mir (Misha) gets kidnapped by some jerk who is extremely racist against Reyvateils. Mir's soul wakes up and starts spawning viruses again, since apparently data materialization is a thing (although basically it's how song magic works, sort of). Also, she breaks the Tower's weather control system a little bit, although some guy named Lyner who will continue to be important manages to get that fixed.

Soon enough Mir finds out that some entirely random Reyvateil she has absolutely no connection to is somehow similar enough to herself in the right ways that (a) the other Reyvateil, Aurica, can use her Hymn Code (they're like system ID/permissions) and (b) Mir herself can poke around in Aurica's mind. Using this vulnerability, Mir decides to show Aurica a vision of the (supposed) Goddess Tyria and "commands" her to go get the Hymn Crystal Linker which will allow Mir to hijack Aurica's body.

Lyner, meanwhile, is either (a) helping Aurica look for said Hymn or (b) helping Misha look for a different Hymn called Chronicle Key (which is part of the actual seal on Mir). Regardless of which, both Aurica and Misha succeed in getting the respective Hymns they're looking for; Aurica sings Linker and Mir temporarily takes over Aurica's body. The bishop of Aurica's church reveals some plan of his to get revenge on Shurelia for some reason or other by using Mir, but Mir won't have any part of that and infects him with viruses. Misha manages to start singing Chronicle Key to re-seal Mir before she can completely take over Aurica, though.

However, Mir also has a pawn in the Knights of Platina (a group Lyner is part of that's been opposing her since Misha's kidnapping): namely, an upper-ranking knight by the name of Ayatane Michitaka. Ayatane is actually a very complex virus based on this one guy Mir met before being imprisoned in the Silver Horn, and on an occasion Shurelia decided to meet him alone he managed to implant Mir's consciousness into Shurelia. She completely scrambles up the Knights' battle plans by removing their leader (who happens to be Lyner's dad) and attacks everything with viruses again. Lyner and his friends come with a thing called an FFT Divider which is supposed to remove Mir from Shurelia, and they get it to work somehow. At this point, Mir is the Tower (and she says so) so Shurelia uses the Hymn Suspend as a desperation move, which turns off the tower and Shurelia herself.

Some months pass. Lyner and Aurica reboot the tower and Shurelia with a hymn called Re=Nation. This obviously also causes Mir to wake up, and she manages to partially extricate her soul from the thing keeping it in check, with Ayatane's help. She orders him to go destroy the thing that keeps the floating continent... well, floating but decides to not do that after hearing that Lyner is going to try to release Mir from that whole hating of humans thing. That makes her want to delete Ayatane but she decides not to for reasons.

At some point Lyner starts Diving into Shurelia. Since Shurelia has no Cosmosphere, they end up acting some virtual storyline that ends up being called "Singing Angel Shurelia" which ends kind of terribly. The reason for that is that Mir wrote the original story (somehow) and tweaked it once she realized L+S were using it for fun. Lyner ends up changing the ending somehow and this gets Mir frustrated at him. She still hasn't forgiven him for that. Also, his plan to save Mir from her own all-consuming hatred works out somehow, and she becomes reasonably sane.

(In case it wasn't clear, Mir is the antagonist of the first game.)

Mir and an acquaintance of hers go to the far-off land of Metafalss in separate airships. Mir decided to go because she had studied the culture of Metafalss before she was sealed and really liked it, and in addition was going to try to obtain the theory of land creation, Metafalica. What she finds is that Metafalss is a crumbling country that is slowly dying. she found a robot called "Jakuri" and hid herself in it, intending for no one on Metafalss to know who she really was. She also met some guy called Dr. Laude (that's pronounced "loud", or at least it's supposed to be) who was from Sol Cluster, an even more far-off land. They work together not as allies, but just as people who happen to share the same goal: obtain a "Heart of Gaea". The name of the robot Jakuri is misheard by some people, transforming it into the alias "Jacqli". (From here on out, I'll call her Jacqli simply because everyone she meets from here out does.)

A faction in Metafalss known as the Sacred Army at some point reveals that the Holy Maiden, Cloche Leythal Pastalia, is a sham, by revealing that the true Holy Maiden is in fact some lower-class girl named Luca Trulyworth. Cloche responds by activating the comparatively ancient machine Infel Phira, breaking some bizarre treaty and causing a humanoid droid, Raki, to attack. Jacqli recognizes this droid as a very powerful Tower Guardian and jumps on it in the robot, stopping it from attacking. She then pressures Laude, who holds a position in the government somewhere, to get the two Maidens to sing Metafalica.

That whole thing fails, and makes one of them into a chaotic, unstable land, Gaea. Jacqli travels to Gaea in pursuit of the newly-created Heart of Gaea. Croix, a Grand Bell knight and a protector of Cloche or Luca (depending on which is now Gaea), also travels to Gaea in the hopes of saving the girl. Jacqli tells Croix that their goals are counter to each other, but he's free to continue working towards it anyway.

Jacqli reaches the Heart of Gaea first, and sings the Hymn Sphilia to retrieve it (which is also Cloche/Luca's soul, sort of). Jacqli retreats to her base in an abandoned house outside of a town, but when Croix confronts her she simply gives the Heart to him, saying that it isn't going to work for what she'd planned to do with it. She also decides to stick with Croix's group since they're both after Metafalica.

Jacqli's involvement in the actual plot of Ar tonelico 2 from then on is mostly an informative one, due to her extensive knowledge of Metafalss' history (none of the other characters in the party have this kind of knowledge) and of Sound Science-based technology, although she also uses her Song Magic for demolition and breaking security.

However, she also allows Cloche, Luca, and Croix to Dive into her as sort of a break, since she has perfect control over her own Cosmosphere up to and for the most part including Level 5. She uses this control to immerse them in a custom-built magical girl narrative. Croix has the option of going further once she trusts him, but for the purposes of this app I assume a different ending, so he declines.

For example, her expertise comes in handy when someone (who turns out to be Frelia, the Sol Marta administrator) sings the Hymn Hibernation, which uploads everyone's minds into the Infel Phira. This has the unfortunate side effect of deleting the minds of every IPD (Infel Phira Dependent) Reyvateil, which happens to include Cloche as well as Croix's adopted sister Cocona. The group travels to the Lakra facility, only to find that the person-turned-AI running it, also named Lakra, is entirely inside Infel Phira. Left with little other choice, Jacqli suggests that Croix Dive into Cocona, which will allow him to access the Binary Field and remove Lakra. Doing this is extremely dangerous, but it works, although it leaves the IPDs very weak.

However, the emotional backlash from that incident causes a horrible monster to spawn back in the Lakra facility. When everyone makes it back there, they fight a thing made of negative emotions with the help of one of Jacqli's Hymns, Harmonius Fusion. Jacqli actually calls it cute. She's made worse.

The plan to help the IPDs recover hinges on another Hymn, Implanta (read: restore from backup). Upon obtaining the Implanta crystal, Croix asks Jacqli to download it, but she refuses, saying that her emotions won't give the song the desired effect. This turns out to be just as well, since it turns out only an IPD can sing it anyway. Cloche volunteers despite her weakened condition.

It's revealed at some point that there are two different Holy Maidens, and that Cloche and Luca are each one of them, and that furthermore the Metafalica hymn comes in two parts, one for each Maiden. So when they get the second part, they decide to investigate Sol Marta since Frelia has been with them the whole time, and that can only mean someone's been impersonating her as the Goddess the entire game. To do that, they need to re-show the Second Tower, which was hidden from the eyes of the people long ago, using the hymn Viena.

The crystal for Viena turns out to be hidden deep within the Rim of Metafalss, but also protected by a mobile army-spawning platform. Fortunately, its control key hymn is nearby, and Jacqli asks to download it. She tries the hymn, Despedia, to get it out of the way, but finds that the vast majority of her commands are being blocked. This leads her to conclude that someone is living in the Binary Field, like she did for a long time.

Actually singing Viena, however, requires the party to drop an inhabited area of the Rim, which entails getting the people's trust. Jacqli is little help here, though the party finds a Heart of Gaea in the Mikry Forest area.

On their way up the tower, the party runs into Raki again. They manage to knock Raki out, but since Raki controls most of the doors in Sol Marta, they can't open the doors. The party drags her (Raki is built female-looking) back to a super high-tech Dive Machine, and Jacqli Dives into Raki to change all the doors. She can't do this herself because she has no experience with maintenance droids, so she calls up Shurelia in the Binary Field, who obliges on the condition that Jacqli return to Sol Ciel after she's done in Metafalss.

At some point in Sol Marta, Jacqli suggests that the party dive into Frelia as a break, and they do that. Jacqli wrote this story, too, and invites Shurelia, Misha, and Aurica to join in. They accept.

Anyway, they make it to the center of Sol Marta, where it turns out that the person claiming to be the Goddess the whole game is actually the Maiden of Aqua preceding Cloche, from centuries ago (the office of Maiden of Aqua is not hereditary). She now has her Maiden of Fuero partner (i.e. Luca's ancestor) back as well since she was also turned into a Heart of Gaea. They start singing a hymn Sublimation, which is kind of like Hibernation except that it doesn't erase the IPDs and it also affects everyone on the planet. The party wants none of that and manages to defeat the former Maiden and her partner. Although it also turns out that the partner was just a pale imitation of the actual Reyvateil.

Cloche and Luca then sing the duet Metafalica and it works, so now they have a new continent that isn't slowly falling apart.

Before leaving, Jacqli has one more thing left to deal with. She gives the Mikry Forest's Heart of Gaea to Cocona, telling her to go to the Tower of Harvestasha. Jacqli can't go herself since she promised to go back to Sol Ciel, and also because she'd die. She leaves out that second part.

At some point she uses the Dishadow hymn to reabsorb Shadow into herself. I have no idea when that happens, so I assume it takes place after she returns to Sol Ciel. She also lives for a few more centuries after that but those don't matter to me and they shouldn't matter to you, either. In fact, let's just ignore Dishadow altogether; it'll make things more interesting.

There is a history page for her on the AT wiki here.
For the complete plot of the games, you may want to consult these LPs instead since the AT wiki doesn't have plot summaries (which is pretty dumb, if you ask me).

Reincarnated History: Miranda Atmiller was born to well-off, yet distant, parents, both highly successful programming consultants. They had little involvement at all in her life, and were often both away for months at a time, leaving a hired servant in charge of the house. With no friends, since her elevated status made everyone at schools distant from her, and little to do at home other than schoolwork and looking through the extensive library of books and other documentation related their job, she took to doing exactly that, to which her parents responded by just buying her a personal computer to mess around with. And mess around with it she did, taking it apart and reassembling it, among all the odd projects she had on the code side of the machine.

In high school, she managed to actually make a friend. Her friend was at least a good artist, and Miranda herself had been looking for an outlet for a different sort of creative energies that had built up over the years, leaving a massive pile of neglected scripts. The result was a visual novel named Mystical Love Soul that ended up making a fair bit of money when they started selling it. Since then, though, they've drifted apart a fair bit and rarely talk to each other. Overall her school performance was nothing short of excellent.

Immediately after her graduation ceremony, however, she received a phone call with terrible news: Her parents had died in a plane crash. While she wasn't left penniless, a lot of her parents' resources were left to relatives she had never met. In response she stole the police's and airline carrier's files on the incident, in order to try to discover the truth. Which was awful, since it turned out that one of the staff members on the plane had sabotaged it and they were covering it up. Outraged, she leaked the files on the Internet under the name "Clear Snake". This, however, wasn't enough to satisfy her, and she subsequently infected the computers at the airline carrier's head office with a virus. And many of her high school classmates. They didn't treat her too well.

She went on to study computer science in college, although she kept up with corporate scandals and sent occasional sequel viruses to the companies she decided she didn't like. Hearing of strange goings-on regarding Thunder Corporation, she applied for graduate school in Locke City and was accepted; she purchased a home and intends to move in as soon as possible.

First Echo: The "Jacqli" alias. Occurs when she purchases a car; the staffer working with her happens to have nicknamed one of the cars Jacqli.

Preincarnation Personality: Mir loves humans.

Now hold on, you're probably thinking, if she loves humans what's with the genocide plots? ...I'll get to that later.

The "surface" Mir is cold and generally unwilling to form deep relationships, generally speaking in deadpan (although she manages to get in plenty of snark with that). The fact that she manipulates her Cosmosphere into a story instead of doing a more conventional dive attests to this, as she feels as if she needs to resolve her issues on her own. The story is ostensibly about Kuroaki Mawata (played by Croix), a high-school student, and two friends of his named Reish Ryokuya and Luca Manabe (Cloche and Luca, respectively) who can use his energy to transform into the magical girl team Cherry and Viole, who battle the forces of evil as led by Miros (Mir). Interestingly, Reish and Luca have sisterly affection towards each other in this story, which suggests that Mir knows more about what is going on than most of the party with regards to them. I choose to believe this is true, based on her interaction with either's Heart of Gaea. Miros, however, has another identity as well, a student by the name of Miwa Togasaki. Kuroaki falls for Miwa, and the story progresses into a bizarre ending that, if Croix decides to press her about, she responds with words to the effect of "I don't know. Deal with it."

Mir is also very practical and hates useless things and "unitaskers", i.e. things built for an extremely specific purpose that's doable using something else. The reason she wears such a ridiculous outfit is because it's a Harmobody Suit, which increases the power of Song Magic. (Incidentally, it is the best armor for Reyvateils in the game.) In fact, she has no nudity taboo whatsoever and had to be convinced to wear clothes at all. (The costumes that can show up in battles are also a product of Song Magic, albeit an unexplained one; they also change her performance.)

However, arguably the most important thing about Mir pervades her entire Cosmosphere. In Levels 1-5 it manifests as a sort of quiet internal conflict between Miwa and Miros. In Level 6, however, it becomes an all-out war between the darkness of Mir, still bent on creating the empire of Reyvateilia (as still portrayed by Miros, interestingly), and the side of her that can't forgive herself for ever trying to do such a thing (who stops being called Miwa and goes back to being called Jacqli, albeit here dressed in the clothes she's in when talking with Croix at night). If Croix makes it to level 6, he must choose which aspect of Mir (Miros or Jacqli) to favor, which results in two different Level 7s - "Crime" and "Punishment".

"Crime" occurs if he takes Miros' offer to show him her past. Which she does. It's a past full of suffering, a past that is a crime, and furthermore suffering that is a crime. Most of the development on this Cosmosphere level is on Croix's end, but it's a good example of Mir's honesty and integrity: she doesn't lie except in blatantly obvious ways.

On the other hand, he moves to "Punishment" if he sides with Jacqli to stop Miros. In this level, Mir is shown about to execute herself, although the Mir shown about to be executed isn't one Croix has seen before. Up until that point, her desire for revenge had been all that was driving her forward, but she realizes that there's more to herself than that and calls it off.

But in Level 8, she realizes something: If she didn't expect anything out of humans, how could she hate them? Furthermore, she never really gave up on her hopes that humans and Reyvateils could understand each other, so she became self-loathing for trying to harm them. But she also sees "humans" as more of a collective one than a group of individuals (read: most humans are the same to her).

Really, all the extra deep stuff boils down to this: Deep within herself, Mir loves humans.

(note: I talk about her Cosmosphere so much here because it is literally her mind - nothing happens in it for no reason, even if the reason is "because that's what the script calls for".)

Any differences:
For pretty obvious reasons, Miranda is not NEARLY as issue-riddled as her past self. Having only 25 years of life as opposed to almost 400 certainly helps with that, as does the fact that she was merely isolated, not tortured in the name of science, but she's still kind of cold and distant, believing that since no one really tried to understand her, she shouldn't try to understand anyone else. Other obvious changes include an ability to see people as individuals (albeit just to a limited degree) and an actual psychological desire to wear clothes.

Also now present in her human life is a disdain for large corporations, which wasn't present in canon. Sure, large organizations exist on Ar Ciel, but the ones Mir knew of weren't actually that bad when she was released. When attacking a company like this she cares little for the welfare of anyone working for it. In addition, she's rather paranoid thanks to one of her hobbies and tries to "wall off" her hacker things from her other projects. Even so, she tries not to show it and would be pretty good at cards if she ever played.

Miranda is also rather methodical, due to the nature of the way most computers work in a modern Earth setting as opposed to one where they can be controlled mentally. This isn't to say that she can't develop new methods or experiment, it just takes more time for her to do so and she isn't as likely to. On some levels, this clashes with an eye for the unique, especially if she can't fathom how instructions A led to result 5. Instructions A leading to result 5, however, was standard procedure for item synthesis in her past life (and not even just for her!), so if she starts getting back recipe cards and such she's going to have to stop and wonder what the heck her past self was thinking.

She is also an atheist, choosing to believe that no god or goddess could be so incompetent as to be running the universe like this. Earth, however, is another matter; she hasn't really thought about why but protecting the environment is important to her as well.

Abilities:
Mir is a Neo Pure-Blooded Beta Type Reyvateil (and the only active one, since all three of the others were more-or-less stillborn). This means that she is capable of using her emotions to make various things happen, which is generally called "Song Magic" because there's singing involved and it looks pretty magical but Song Magic is actually neither singing nor magic, just conversion of feelings into effects through some weird sound-related pseudosciency process that also involves a lot of computer stuff.
"Song Magic" comes in three types: Red, Blue, and Green.
Red Magic is a charged attack. When a Red Magic is initiated it will begin charging, and can be released at any time; it is released automatically if Mir's mental stamina is depleted.
Blue Magic provides some sort of continuous effect, healing or otherwise. Power initially gained during the singing of a Blue Magic can be instantly converted to power for a Red Magic.
If someone (most likely herself) echoes a Dive Machine, someone could potentially cause her to gain new songs, since one of the main purposes of Diving is to create new Song Magic.
I'd list her standard Song Magic/Hymmnos Words but that kind of breaks the HTML for some reason. Have a chart of it instead.
Green Magic is used for exploration. Whenever she's seen blowing up something or frying circuits so the party can proceed she's using a Green Magic song. (It only shows up as a gameplay mechanic in the first game, though, which is why this part is marked headcanon).

Combo Magic is a special form of Red Magic that occurs whenever she and a nearby Reyvateil are sufficiently in sync. She can only Combo Magic with Cloche and Luca in canon, but it is reasonable to assume that she can activate Combo Magic with Aurica, Misha, and Shurelia as well, because of the nature of their relationships.

Extracts, on the other hand, are not nearly as freely craftable, so she has a lot less of them. Despite this she has a knack for it.
EXEC_HARMONIUS/. : Calms the minds of any listeners, leaving them in a state of relative happiness. It was created out of feelings of admiration for the human race. (If you try looking this one up, you'll get Misha's version of it.)
EXEC_VANISLAND/. : This song was used in the war to destroy half of Sol Ciel's floating continent. (If you try looking this one up, you won't find it.)
EXEC_RIG=VEDA/. : Despite being crafted under different circumstances, has the same effect as Harmonius (to calm the minds of people that listen to it). It was created as a response to being rescued by Lyner.
EXEC_SPHILIA/. : Helps herself and another entity to communicate emotionally. Actually mostly improvised, based on the response given by Luca or Cloche's Heart of Gaea.
EXEC_HARMONIUS_FUSION/. : A remix of the original Harmonius that specifically targets rage and dispels angry spirits or something. It's still pretty similar to the original Harmonius.
EXEC_DESPEDIA/. : A control key for a specific machine. It's not likely to get any use, but it sounds awesome. It highlights the darker half of her personality and is... very Yandere-ish.
EXEC_DISHADOW_includes.Ex_VANISLAND/. : Created to reabsorb and eliminate Shadow, who was apparently still hanging around after everything. This song is a duet with Shurelia.

HOWEVER, none of these powers work unless she's within range of the Ar tonelico Song Server (or a relay station such as Sol Marta), which actually makes all this happen. Of course, if she has her Reyvateil body and she isn't, she has bigger problems: namely, her mind can't connect to her body and she dies. WHOOPS.

Regardless of that, she is really good with computers and hacking and all things Wave Science, which kind of comes from living in a computer for almost 400 years. She's capable of operating Dive Machines, which allow people to enter the minds of Reyvateils or, in Data Analysis mode, other machines, although that's much harder (The Dive Machine tech asks for a license when she tries Diving into Raki. She does not have the license, but she says she has more experience than anyone that ever did. The tech lets her do the Dive, obviously...). She does not, however, know much about maintenance droids and can't do much with robots in general.

On the other side of a Dive, her Cosmosphere is very malleable and can handle three people Diving into it at once. Furthermore, she has total control over Levels 1 through 5 of it and uses it to create an elaborate magical girl story for the enjoyment of Croix, Cloche, and Luca, although having the three of them even only as deep as Level 3 began to strain her mind slightly, resulting in defects akin to breaking glass. However, there are three fixed portions of her Cosmosphere: the Tower of Life and the Stonehenge, which are present in all Reyvateils, and the Sea of Nam, specific to hers.

Roleplay Sample – Third Person:

There was a knock at Miranda's front door, and she didn't know what to think.

Because it had never happened before.

"Hi there! Welcome to the neighborhood," were the first words out of the person on the other side when she answered. "I'm having a party in a couple days if you want to come. But hey, what's your name?"

She blinked five times in the next eight seconds. "...Miranda." There wasn't any point lying about it.

"Well, Miranda, see you then!" her... presumably this was someone living nearby? said in response, whipping out a pen and a card and personalizing the invitation for her on the spot. The neighbor then almost-but-not-quite skipped back down her driveway before continuing down the street.

...This only confused her more. People didn't act like this. They never had.

The door closed as smoothly as it was opened, with much the same noise as a loose digital wristwatch falling onto a tile floor. No longer in the right frame of mind to write or code, all she could do was contemplate the offer she'd just been given.

Roleplay Sample - Network:
[As usual, this is typed. And as anonymous as it can get.]

...I think I was tortured.

I don't think I can explain it much better than that, because it hurt like hell. I've never heard of most of the stuff they were using on me, though, so I was wondering.

If the 'words' "Grathnode", "Parameno", or "Reyvateil" mean anything to any of you, I want to know.

[It doesn't make sense, though. Why would they want to destroy her emotions...?]

Any Questions? ...Not really.

[Edited: 2013-06-23: Reincarnation Personality expansion and deletion of not-happening third-person sample]

[Edited: 2013-06-23: Prose sample rewrite complete.]