Chapter 2: Planeptune
You've experienced Neptunia in all of its glory but want to learn more about its story. Well to get to the heart of the story, you have to go back to the beginning...
"Really? 'To get to the heart of the story, you have to go back to the beginning'? That's just cheesy," a woman in an unzipped dark purple jacket, a white fingerless iliac gloves, dirtied white pants and iliac boots mumbled as she brushed her long purple hair aside away from her eyes before returning to her alcoholic beverage, which smelled rather strong, even from a distance. The woman's eyes darted back to the light-green combat armoured man next to her, an image of what was going to happen next started to haunt her.
"Well, cheesy or not, it certainly is a good catchphrase, even if it isn't exactly mine. All successful storytellers usually say it, although that is definitely a story for another day," the Storyteller chuckled as he rested his arms on the bar, the sounds of glasses clinking and people talking echoed throughout the pub. Soon afterwards however, just as the purple haired woman began to fear, the Storyteller began to continue on with the story.
The purple haired woman groaned audibly and slapped her face, the grip on her mug of heavy alcohol tightened. "Ugh! I wish I was already drunk."
"Come on, this'll be fun. Haven't you ever wanted to know the history of your own country before? No sense of patriotism or anything? Not even remotely interested in history? Well then, that'll change quickly, if I do say so myself," the Storyteller said as gazed back at the grumbling woman, who was silently getting creeped out by the armoured man's stare – she could not actually see his eyes behind the combat helmet's visor.
"Ugh. Look, I've just been dumped by my boyfriend and I really want to be left alone. I, uh, appreciate the company, but I don't want to be annoyed over here," the lonely woman tried to explain politely, but to no avail – the Storyteller had already begun his lore ranting. The Planeptunian let out a frustrated growl and headbutted the bar loudly.
Where better to go back to the beginning than looking at Planeptune, a nation filled with meta jokes and references to goddess knows what. This country is one of the more better well-known nations in all of the various versions of Gamindustri, for better or for worse depending on where you happen to be. It is called the Land of Purple Progress, and it is easy to see why people call it that, for purple is the national colour of the country and the nation is always progressing to advance in any manner possible. This nation is filled with meta gags, reference jokes that date back to some old console games, unexpected optimistic personas, a cheerful culture and more, much to the annoyance of other residents of the other nations. This land blessed with the CPU Purple Heart's protection, who defends it with her life; one could say that it is a part of her. When she cannot be there to run it, Histoire takes her stead. Most of the time, however, Histoire simply runs the country with or without the nation's goddess being present in either her human or HDD form, although.
This goddess, Purple Heart, it also known as Neptune, one of the more famous of the senior four CPUs, but more on that for a later discussion. Like all the other senior goddesses, aside from Vert, also known as Green Heart, Neptune has a sister called Nepgear, also known as Purple Sister. The CPU Candidate of Planeptune is known to be a lot more productive than her older sister and is generally regarded to be the better of the two in terms of work effort as well as looks, although the latter is a subject to be discussed between the truly devout and the other goddesses who have nothing better to do to help their countries. Many of the people who Purple Heart and Purple Sister protect and supposedly govern take after their goddesses in personality, making some have chirpy optimism and a knack for over-the-top jokes, while others are more refined in the ways of scientific battlefield technology while also having an outgoing friendly demeanour.
As a side point: in the back when times centuries ago, Planeptune was ruled by a different CPU, some say two while many others say three, all within different times of course. Time has forgotten the very first Goddess of Planeptune, leaving only secondhand guesses that puzzle all who try to research into the subject, if there had ever been three Planeptunian CPUs before Neptune, which may be the case for many locations across the Multiverse. The Planeptunian CPU after this huge gap of Planeptune's early history is basically unknown, for records are difficult to come by. This had been the case, however, until recently in many Hyperdimensions where a crisis broke out that rewrote entire timelines, rendering the CPUs powerless for a while before it was all sorted out, at least in most cases anyway. It was said that the one who started the crisis was the first CPU of Planeptune herself, others say it was her shadow-self. The second CPU that ruled Planeptune in ages past is better known to us lore enthusiasts. Her name was Uranus, the Goddess who was birthed by the faith of the people and gave up her existence to protect them from an ancient evil.
Geographically, Planeptune governs the western parts of Gamindustri, more specifically the south-west landscape with Lowee to their north, Lastation to their south across, depending on which dimension, a large crater filled with seawater, and Leanbox to their south-east across an unnamed water channel, which I personally like to call the Leanboxian Channel. Its two nearby cities are Erethisan City and Haneda City. Adding more credence to the fact that Planeptune is the nation most ravaged by monsters, its capital city is the nearest to the Gamindustri Graveyard, although that would depend on which dimension it is located.
What is true, however, is that Planeptune has more of a monster problem than its neighbours. This has provided the local guild with plenty of jobs for the more adventurous types, making the slaying of monsters more of a lifestyle and an art form here in the Land of Purple Progress. With all of this it is clear that, despite its advanced technology and civilization - at least to quite an extent anyway compared to one or two other neighbouring countries - Planeptune is the land most ravaged by a large variety of monsters, especially in the western regions where the rule of law is barely existing.
The nation looks to be the most futuristic due to their architecture, which is quite something, and happens to be somewhat advanced looking compared to the others. It is filled with towering buildings and structures that reach high into the sky, at least from a ground level look at least. In terms of technology, Planeptune seems to be more ahead than its neighbours, although that is up to conjecture, the Land of Purple Progress also looks to be the nation with the most advanced technology in all of Gamindustri, although that is quite debatable due a various amount of reasons, such as some aspects of their military and industry. Despite some technological innovations, the nation's military is lacking, forcing the people to turn to the local guild and the CPUs for protecting in armed conflict. Of course, this varies for some dimensions where Planeptune exists. Some of them have a pretty good military. If there is to be an armed crisis in the future, Planeptune would possibly have the most trouble, though who knows.
A noticeable structure in Planeptune is the Neptower, a large tower which is clearly visible within the city. The bottom of the landmass is also filled with buildings and skyscrapers. The appearance of Planeptune's architecture is bright, much like nearly all of the people who dwell in the Land of Purple Progress, most of the buildings look to be bright blue and white. This seems to resonate within the personas of nearly every citizen of the Land of Purple Progress, which happens to annoy some of the residents of the other three nations, at least sometimes anyway - some people are found to be quite attracted to it.
According to its most recent history in the past several years, Planeptune was on the verge of annihilation by foreign forces, most likely highly dangerous monsters that not even the guild could properly handle, until Histoire and her comrades, most likely IF and Compa, the famous human heroes of Planeptune, successfully prevented the crisis from getting too out of hand. Histoire would then save the nation again from an unexpected economical crisis, which was rumoured to be caused by a huge increase of pudding and Nep Bull - a Planeptunian delicacy most cherished by its CPU - being bought by the senior CPU herself. Due to Histoire's efforts, she was elected the head of state by an overwhelming majority of the Planeptunian population. Whenever there is a major crisis, all turn to Histoire and her guidance in their time of need.
This last piece of history is most interesting for historians and critics of the goddesses and their governments. Is there democracy in the political system where everyone got to vote for a leader aside from a goddess, or did the people demand for Histoire to become their de facto leader in either a crisis or indefinitely? It's fascinating because there never has been a true answer due to how vague the events were. This sort of history played out in quite a lot of the various versions of Planeptune, even the ones where there was not a major ASIC Crisis, so it is safe to assume that there are hardly any divergences in their lore. It does make it easier for any dimensional and universal traveller who has a knack and interest for learning all manner of history.
Some years ago, many Planeptunian citizens believed their goddess was once defeated by an overlord, which created a rift in Planeptune´s protection and caused an increase in monster attacks. To add credence to these views, the CPU Purple Heart had not been seen by her people in over three years. It was a time of strife, discontent and heresy. This was the ASIC Crisis.
The ASIC Crisis was, around that time, one of the most dangerous events to have happened for a long time. It did indeed happen in many universes and dimensions, although when the crisis eventually ended a few times out of many it ended in conquest, bloodshed and corruption. Fortunately such endings to those situations rarely occurred, although if anybody ever manages to travel to a dimension where this 'Conquest Era' is played out then they would do best to get out of there after seeing some scenic views. Luckily this sort of ending to a world wide crisis did not play out in most of the various dimensions, instead it was resolved with much less deaths and more friendship, to say the least anyway.
Sometimes it ended with Neptune stepping down from her position and letting her younger sister Nepgear take up her role, but most times the crisis ended with nothing much changing, as if the crisis had not happened at all, although the goddesses and their companions would merely say that what changed was their level of friendship, which only gets stronger no matter what in their opinion. As the old Planeptunian saying goes: 'The power of friendship is forever eternal and only grows stronger'. That saying does have quite a lot of truth to its words, even if it doesn't ring in some dimensions. Still, it doesn't stop Neptune from making friends with alternate version of her dimension's friends, and making friends with otherwise goddesses that are unknown of in this world, especially since the last crisis involving the breaking of the timeline and a war against despair tested the faith and friendship between Neptune, Nepgear and their friends.
With all the mess that happens every time a crisis occurs one does have to wonder if the Planpetunian military can even do its job of defending the nation, then it dawns upon them that the military is just that: inefficient. Despite the technological advancements in some areas of the country, the military seems to have changed little with the innovations made over the decades. True, the army has been upgraded by some handheld weapons, not to mention schematics for robotic walkers and suits, but little has been done to implement them. The army is small in scale, so most problems have to be solved by the goddesses and the local guild, in fact everyone seems to rely on the guild far too much, although they are sometimes included into the elite of the military at times. A problem to be sure, in some cases at least. Still, it does make a pretty peaceful image.
There has been quite a lot of debate in many versions of Planeptune regarding the age of the country and who their very first CPU was. Naturally, as all things go, the debate differs between dimensions, although most seem to have the same story regardless. The usual story that gets told is that Planeptune is old, but is not as old as Lowee, their neighbour to the north. However, there is one nation that Planeptune seems to hold a lot of history with, no matter which dimension they are in: Lastation. Whether it is because of the history between the two senior CPUs or because of how close the two nations are with diplomacy, culture, lifestyle or something else entirely, no one can really make a proper guess.
"But that is a story for another day," the Storyteller said wistfully, as if he wanted to continue on with talking about Lastation immediately, but instead choosing to stop and rest for a moment before continuing on. He stretched his arms out and grunted in relief, then returned his attention to the woman next to him to the right, only to see her unconscious with several dozens of empty glass mugs and shot glasses lying about on the bar. She was snoring loudly and with a pleased look upon her face. The Storyteller shook his armoured, visored head and sighed in disappointment. "Ugh, not again. Why do people always get themselves drunk whenever I talk to them in a pub? Just doesn't make any sense."
With a disgruntled sigh, the Storyteller got up out of his seat and stood tall before heading over to the pub door, barely avoiding a random drunk Planeptunian as they collapsed onto the ground from drinking too much in such a small amount of time. Soon enough the mysterious armoured man walked out the door and onto the street, where night had fallen over the city of Planeptune, a song murmuring from them as they walked the darkened streets.
"Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone,
Without a dream in my heart,
Without a love of my own..."
A/N: Welcome back readers for the second chapter of The Storyteller's Guide to Neptunia. Hope you enjoyed this peak into the lore of Planeptune. If there are any issues with it, such as some lore errors, then please do point it out so I can correct it whenever I have the time to do it, and if you have any facts regarding the lore of the nations, goddesses, crises and other stuff then do tell me about it so it'll help with my research. In the net chapter the Storyteller explains the lore of Lastation to any who can hear him, though whether they want to listen the whole way is another matter entirely. Until then, have a good day if you can.