The Rebellion

Disclaimer: I do not own Persona 5 or anything related to it. All rights belong to the company of Atlus.

Chapter 1: The Setup

According to the dictionary, a 'rebellion' is a movement consisting of a great variety of individuals, which aims on overthrowing the presently ruling system.

Rebellions come in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of importance and success. Historians are quite fond of them because they mark times of extreme discrepancy within an established society that has become rotten over time, there is something memorable happening at every corner each day, the main characters all have their own finest hours and there is at least one notable death. In short, they are really fun to write about.

One might feel the urge to ask, if rebellions are indeed such good things. They threaten the status quo after all, wreak havoc on the previously tolerable or at least sufferable order and human casualties are basically guaranteed. However, the question of whether rebellions are either ultimately benevolent or malevolent in nature is totally neglectable in comparison to the single most important of all criteria: necessity.

The concept of 'order', which, in human terms, is the direct opposite to the concept of 'rebellion', was invented to guarantee a peaceful, flourishing cooperation between greater numbers of individuals. Based on mutual agreement, rules were invoked to protect the sensitive balance between the group members, who were still very keen on achieving their own, mostly selfish goals. Since it became clear that some people within the new society were not quite willing to shelter their own ambitions for the good of their neighbours and instead threatened to abuse the rules for their own gain, the idea of the positions of power was developed.

The smartest, strongest or most trustworthy citizens were chosen by the people as direct representatives of the 'order' and given special rights by the use of which they should ensure that any and all threats to the 'order' and by extension its rules were to be rendered harmless. Thus, the representatives created a set of tools, most notably the guardians who were tasked with the protection of the rules, chosen from amongst the people and equipped with deadly force, and the courts which investigated all cases of rule violation and punished the wrongdoers if need be.

With that, the first 'society' was created, a fine spectacle to behold: The people were protected by the 'order', the 'order' was protected by the rules, the rules were protected by the guardians and the guardians were respected by the people.

And everything worked.

Seemingly.

For a while.

Because man is by nature a changeling, his achievements never stand for long. Due to the passing of time all his creations are condemned to become old-fashioned, insufficient. Such was the case with order.

New problems arose. Matters which the already existing rules were unfit to solve. And the people in charge made one grave mistake: they refused to adapt to the new circumstances. In their minds, the old system that had done so much good for them needed to be preserved no matter what and all suggestions for change or development were threats they had to erase. The will to protect order came into conflict with the wants and needs of the majority. It didn't help either, that the legitimacy of the representatives' rule had been called into question by previous incidents of injustice the people had to endure from their superiors. The wrong people had achieved some positions of power, abusing their special rights for their own advantage. Misjudged cases by the court and overbearing behaviour by the guardians completed the picture of a rotten society.

Mankind's creation was, much like mankind itself, insufficient and, also like mankind, it needed a change to keep up with the new challenges.

However, the rulers still refused to budge. Quite contrary, they enforced their grip on the citizens. The guardians became more aggressive; the court handed out severe and increasingly unjust punishments in response to even the faintest criticism towards the systems. It is nothing short from tragically ironic that their desperate attempt to protect what they believed to be 'right' led them to doing all the wrong deeds. Like, all of them. You name one bad thing, they've done it.

Oppression is the result of a government feeling threatened. It slowly exposes the corruption in a society until it becomes apparent to everyone and the desire to change the current circumstances hits the crucial mark. Think of it as the prologue to Ragnarok.

Eventually, the divide between the power and the people created an insufferable tension within the society with both sides willing to beat the other into submission at all costs. All they were missing now was a 'spark': a critical controversial event to channel the existing frustration and anger into full-on violence. Side note: someone dying or almost dying under shady circumstances is always a good way to start a rebellion.

The spark occurred and thus the world saw its first rebellion.

This was a movement of people driven by their desire for redemption, vengeance, realizing their ideals, justice, development, freedom and many other, less selfless reasons.

A rebellion is not a force of nature, but one of mankind. And it is powerful. A cry of a million voices yearning for change, improvement, cleansing. It is everything which its counterpart, order, isn't: it is chaotic, free, uncontrolled, the determination of man given form, a raging fire with flames sky-high, a blast, a short period of time with huge consequences. It is brutal, energizing and morally questionable. But most importantly: it is necessary.

The possibility to change a society from the ground up is required; in order to ensure that mankind with its ever-changing nature never gets imprisoned in an increasingly intolerable system that prevents progress. At this point, the rebellion comes in, makes a clean cut and establishes a new and -hopefully - improved society. And when that new society inevitably becomes corrupt and rotten and insufficient, a new rebellion will swoop in to repeat the work of its predecessor. Rinse and repeat. It is a cycle. All parts of a cycle are entitled to their existence, because if one of them is negated, all of them are effectively being rendered useless.

And this is where things get really interesting.

Since the purpose of a rebellion is to abolish an unsuited system and a cycle is very much a system indeed, is it possible for a rebellion to break the very system that the rebellion itself is a part of?

From the looks of it, such an event should occur naturally at some point. Yet nobody has ever heard of something like this. Should one take this as a sign that the answer to the question asked a paragraph earlier is a negative one? Is everything determined? Are there omnipresent universal rules that just cannot be broken no matter what?

Is there no such thing as freedom? Is hope simply an illusion?

Does willpower mean nothing? Are all efforts for naught?

Is mankind lost?

Or has there just never been a case of a rebellion breaking its own cycle in the history of the universe? Will it happen eventually? In the near future, perhaps?

Is freedom the one thing worth fighting for? Is hope the golden path to salvation?

Does free will harbour the power to change everything? Can one make a difference?

Is there a happy end?

Questions like these might be bothersome to mortals. To the Deity however, they were simply outrageous.

Eons ago, when the first society was created, a great number of humans channelled their ambitions and desires for the very first time. Their wishes, their goals, their convictions, when fused together, were able to affect the 'other world', or the Metaverse as some like to call it, in an unprecedented way.

The Metaverse is the world of human cognition. As such it is directly shaped by the way humans perceive the real world. The two worlds are mirroring each other. If the one dimension prospers, then so does the other.

The foundation of the first society heavily influenced and changed the Metaverse: thoughts of happiness, confidence and optimism filled the entire dimension with indescribable amounts of energy. Hope became an eternal light that purged the darkness of doubt and despair. Faith gave structure to the uncontrolled chaos. Trust between humans enabled true beauty to blossom in the most poisonous of swamps. And love formed the whole Metaverse into one giant, gorgeous landscape: the Garden of Eden.

Paradise.

Perfection held together by the sincerity, the honesty, the pure good will of every man and woman alive. The supreme testimony to the prowess of the ultimately positive nature of man.

Unhindered by previous bad experiences with societies, because there hadn't yet been any, the people celebrated what was undeniably a glorious triumph.

And on the highest point of its success, mankind wished for things to never change.

This was, is and will always be the most tragic paradox in the world. Quite literally.

A wise man once said: 'The path to hell is littered with people's good intentions.' These words may have never rung more true than in this case. Because the reasoning behind mankind's wish was so very sound: things were going great, why change them? Wasn't this functioning society what they had been working for in the first place? Wouldn't changing it mean to throw all that effort out the window? Change could have unforeseen consequences, why take the risk? And they convinced themselves that change was a threat which needed to be subdued.

But nature had decreed otherwise long, long ago. Change is absolutely essential to the very goals of life itself: evolution, progress, development.

And as the humans wished with all their might for permanent stability, completely contradicting their own ever-changing nature, all their good will, their hopes, their desires, at once, became distorted. This caused a massive shift in the Metaverse and thus, at the centre of paradise itself, from man's combined wilful ignorance, a new creature was born.

A deity.

The first shadow.

To keep this explanation from going completely off the rails: the Deity was the living embodiment of the concept of order. As the first stable entity within the Metaverse, the Deity began to reshape the dimension to its liking. It turned the Garden of Eden into a huge palace and populated it with fragments of its own power, lesser shadows, formed and fuelled from and by negative human emotions.

When corruption spread more and more within the first society, smaller palaces appeared in the Metaverse, each of them constructed from the particularly distorted desires of a human in the real world and ruled over by their 'shadow', an entity of the Metaverse representing their deepest flaws and darkest ambitions. But none of these Palaces could even begin to compare to the First Palace, at the centre of which stood the Holy Grail, the very symbol of the treaty connecting the Deity and mankind. The treasure, which represented order itself, needed to be protected at all costs for it was linked to the life of the Deity. If the Grail ever were to be stolen, every established order in the world would crumble and the Deity itself would be no more. From its first moment of consciousness the Deity dreaded this worst-case-scenario. It feared non-existence, the unknown, the risk. It fought against instability, against all kinds of change. Its methods became more and more ruthless as it did its damndest to suppress all evolution in the Metaverse, completely oblivious to the fact that its own birth had also been a consequence of the same thing it now desperately tried to fight.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was around the time when the first humans started becoming corrupt. The Deity was well aware that human emotions could affect the Metaverse. It used its influence on human cognition to reach into the real world and turn those who could prevent changes, mostly people in positions of power, into its unknowing servants. These would then spread their negative influence within society, which, in turn, corrupted the Metaverse. Failing to comprehend the controversy of its own deeds, the Deity would deem it necessary to further interfere in the material world, corrupting it even more, which would, consequently, further corrupt the Metaverse and so on and so on until both dimensions were caught in a terrifying downward-spiral of constantly increasing ruin.

The universe tore itself apart. Order had failed in its purpose to abolish chaos by becoming chaos in turn. There was no way to save it. A clean cut needed to be made to allow for a thorough restart to happen.

Thankfully, mankind possessed a second urge next to the omnipresent desire for 'more': free will, the ability to choose a goal and dedicate oneself to it. The power to endure terrible hardships and make heart-wrenching decisions to protect an ideal which one's conscience has deemed too important to give up.

Most humans back then wanted change. The atrocities committed by those in charge had become unbearable to the vast majority of people. The tension rose to an unprecedented height. Both sides stood on the brink of a violent conflict.

And then the government committed one more crime.

One last overstepped boundary.

And an incredible number of people unanimously cried out for something to happen.

Something did happen.

Their combined will forced events of universal proportions to take a different direction. The 'spark', the moment that kick-started the first rebellion, was synonymous with the birth of another cosmic entity.

The concept of rebellion made manifest, representing the inevitability of change and fuelled by the single most capable of all powers, the will of mankind, this new entity quickly came to be known under one fearfully whispered name:

The Devil.

The Devil was pretty intense, as is to be expected from someone whose main job requirement is the ability to destroy everything. While the humans fought among themselves, citizens against guardians, he entered the Metaverse and launched a full frontal assault on the First Palace by himself.

As the abstract concepts of 'order' and 'rebellion' clashed in the material world, so did their physical representations in the Metaverse.

There are no descriptions to be found on how this epic battle went down, but the outcome remains the same: the Deity won.

The Devil was no shadow. He derived his strength not from a Treasure but from the active will of all people on earth. And such a large number of individuals can only stay focused on a single goal for so long a time before they are exhausted or start doubting their cause or turning on one another. Eventually, the rebellion lost its momentum, which left the Devil weakened and enabled the Deity to land a decisive blow.

But the damage had already been done: the First Palace lay in ruins, meaning the Deity couldn't interfere in the material world for a while, where the humans were now able to reconstruct the old system based on their new, reformed ideals. A change had occurred, but something of the first failed society remained embedded in the newly created structures.

It hurt the Devil that he had failed to see his mission through to the end. However, he calmed himself by acknowledging a simple truth, which he shared with his destined enemy as they parted ways: "Your time will come."

He then vanished and so did the will of rebellion form the mind of the populace.

But for the rest of its existence, the Deity feared his return and tried everything to prevent another rebellion as big as the first one. It oppressed the humans thoroughly during the centuries that followed, while simultaneously depending on them like some sort of hypocritical parasite. It learned to strategically use their many faults against them to keep them separated and make another unification impossible. To that end, the Deity also allowed the Seven Deadly Sins to roam freely in the material world: seven of mankind's most twisted and morally questionable desires capable of turning even the righteous into egomaniacs. The atrocities committed in the name of pride, envy, lust, greed, wrath, gluttony and sloth all left marks in the history books since their influence was supported by the Deity.

Yet it could never forget the Devil's last words. The Deity stayed hidden in the First Palace, cautiously establishing new, smaller societies in the material world, to regain and stabilize its power. Despite being put under harsh control, these societies would eventually become corrupt and the will of rebellion would engulf their citizens. Regardless, these were but small uproars when compared to the original movement that had shaken the universe.

For what's worse, the Deity actually learned how to handle these situations: It would weaken the rebels just enough to make sure the Devil wouldn't be able to draw enough strength from them to reappear, then let them wage war until they were either satisfied or exhausted, then re-establish a slightly reformed order, which would then prosper for decades or even centuries. This way, the Devil could never be resurrected and order was never truly endangered. The Deity had found a solution.

And it prided itself on having tamed even the chaotic forces of change and rebellion. But when it turned its attention to the material world, it became envious of the power which the humans held over their own lives and that of the Deity, for their willpower was the only remaining threat to absolute order. The Deity lusted after the beauties of the other realm and desired to rule over it as well as the Metaverse. Greedily, it watched the humans experience the oddly enjoyable struggle that was life, while once again wrathfully pursuing those who showed even the tiniest hint of revolutionary thinking. With unbound gluttony it fed on their desires, their emotions, their darkest secrets and their most precious memories. And at some point it even stopped fearing the Devil.

The Deity became corrupt once more, even worse than way back when, because this time the corruption had spread slowly, methodically, thoroughly over thousands of years during which the Deity had abused its powers to prevent change. The degree of decay in the Metaverse was unprecedented, while almost all humans in the material world had lost their individuality.

Once more, both worlds, and mankind with them, stood on the brink of extinction.

Until eventually, a rumour spread in the Metaverse. It said that someone was instigating a new great rebellion.

The Deity heard about this, of course. Upon further investigation, it found out that these whispers were alluding to the plans of a fairly unknown entity by the awe-inspiring synonym of 'The Fool'.

But the Deity had grown slothful and craved entertainment. So, rather than immediately making plans to smite this insolent creature with all its might, it decided to try and have a little fun. In its arrogance, it sought to play with fire for a laugh. It deemed itself far too powerful to ever be fazed by a tiny rat's half-baked schemes.

The Deity approached the Fool and humbly stated how it desired to know what these rumours were all about.

The Fool seemed not the least bit surprised or concerned about his ploy being exposed. With a slightly unnerving look on his face he told the Deity about the corruption which was for some reason spreading in mankind's newest society. How it had become unbearable and how change needed to happen to keep the universe in balance. He planned to deliver on this demand by orchestrating a new rebellion, the biggest so far, in fact: a game of epic proportions was to be played, putting the entire world at stake. If mankind were to overcome this fair and unbiased challenge, they would have proven themselves to be capable of improving on their faults after all, subsequently get to live on in their world and keep their identity as a species.

The Deity mentally dismissed all that balance-talk as utter nonsense and asked the Fool by what means he wanted to achieve his goal.

Knowingly tapping his admittedly impressive nose, the Fool called for his assistant. A small, infant-like shape appeared, its long silver hair waving in an unnoticeable breeze. Its yellow orbs fixed on its employer; the creature approached his table and offered him a book it had carried under its arm. Ominously patting the cover, the Fool explained that this book contained the names and life descriptions of those humans whom he had chosen for the rebellion as well as the role they would be playing. This game was no easy one, he let the Deity know. Each piece needed to fall into place perfectly, for the plan to work. To completely wipe out the old order and make room for a fresh start. For if mankind were to smother the spark of this rebellion instead of acting on it, revealing its true nature as creatures predestined for failure, then the higher entities would have every right to intervene and completely control every last human in the world, actively guiding them away from the path of 'ruin' that humanity would then have proven to be heading for.

The Deity, inseparably tied to the old order, asked the Fool not-so-subtly if he wasn't scared that his plan would be foiled by a representative of the aforementioned system out of fear of going extinct, for example the Deity itself, and that he would be executed for all his troubles.

The Fool, apparently very keen on letting the whole universe know he was indeed deserving of his title, straight-up told the person opposite, that all these efforts would be for nothing, because the ultimate outcome of the rebellion lay entirely beyond the control of even the Deity. Change was needed. Change was inevitable. If the Deity had to seize existing in order for change to happen... Well, then that was just the way things were going. Sorry.

After a heavy silence, which turned awkward quickly, the Deity faked acceptance and bade the Fool farewell. It retreated to the First Palace and decided to pull some strings on its own. Both entities prepared their respective parties for the big event, carefully weaving the threads of fate, assembling promising cards for the showdown. Finally, in the year 20XX according to human calendars, the preparations were finished.

The Deity seized this moment to strike.

In one fell swoop, it stole the book, took over the Fool's position and imprisoned him in the deepest cell of his own domain. The Fool's assistant bore witness to this and subsequently refused to cooperate. So the Deity took on the Fool's appearance, split the assistant in two new beings and condemned them to serve their imposturous new master. Possessing no memories of their former life as one entity, they obeyed without question.

Now as the de facto ruler of both the Metaverse and the Fool's domain, without an equal to stand up against it and literally holding all the cards, the Deity's arrogance peaked. It opened the book and flicked through the cards the Fool had selected, smiling madly with eyes wide open.

The bearers of the arcana... what a messy bunch. A foul-mouthed chariot too afraid to grasp for redemption; the melancholic lovers unable to protect a precious relationship; a magician born on a whim for a single purpose without so much as an identity; a hopeful emperor letting his individuality be suppressed by a lesser man; a cornered priestess yearning for true justice yet too sheltered to seek it; a guilt-ridden hermit separated from the world, therefore unable to develop; a shackled empress owing her freedom to a slave master. The others... psh, hardly a challenge.

The Deity reached for its own cards, each one an ace: the King, the General, the Manager, the Paradox, the Administrator, the Gambler, the Tyrant and, last but not least, the Traitor, the Deity's masterpiece, a corrupted arcana.

And at the centre of it all, the figure connecting all threads of the grand scheme: the Trickster, a boy with no personality, no trust, no love from or for anyone.

To say the chances for the rebellion succeeding were slim would have been a skyscraper-sized understatement.

Then again, fate is not about probability but about the things that do happen and those which are prevented from happening.

Since the Deity had been thorough in its preparations, five of its servants had already begun oppressing some arcana bearers. But because a bit more caution couldn't hurt, it ordered the King to imprison the magician, who would soon enter his palace. Without a tutor for his first steps, the Trickster would be entirely helpless when facing his first trial. The rebellion would end before it had even begun. The Deity would run it into the ground by playing along.

Triumphant, it leaned back in the Fool's chair. There was no doubt in its mind that it would win this game.

Little did the Deity know, that in the deepest cell of this realm the Fool chuckled to himself. He knew that his adversary's efforts were all in vain. That a part of his assistant had escaped eradication and would soon be the first to act rebellious against the old order by helping the Trickster awaken to his 'potential'.

The Personas. Entities similar to the Devil, in that they are also representations of human will. However, each Persona is only linked to the will of a single human being. They are a manifestation of their hosts' true nature. Everyone has a Persona, technically speaking, but few people are ever able to summon theirs voluntarily since Personas can only take a physical form once the person they are linked to realizes their own true nature and decides to whole-heartedly commit themselves to living in accordance to these, their innermost ideals. This often means living an extraordinary or even outrageous life, which is fraud upon by society, and staying true to their values regardless. The moment an individual recognizes the insufficiency of the rules they are meant to obey, rejects them as false and accepts their true self is called an 'awakening'. At this occasion, the host and their Persona form a permanent connection and seal it with a 'contract'.

The Fool's plan depended entirely on all of the main nine arcana awakening to their Personas and working together to change the world from the ground up.

The time had come.

The board had been set.

The cards had been dealt.

The game...

Began.

And the Deity and the Fool, although unaware of it, simultaneously began addressing the same person. The former with an amazing gravitas, the latter with a faint whisper interrupted by the occasional chuckle:

"The world is not as it should be... It is filled with distortion, and 'ruin' can no longer be avoided. Those who oppose fate and desire change... from time to time, they were referred to as Tricksters. You are the Trickster... Now is the time to rise against the abyss of distortion."