Neo World Program

The **Neo World Program** (sometimes shortened to **NWP**) is a virtual reality program developed by Vivian Tamochi and Kyra Acker. It is run by Alter Ego. It was based on a program of the same name in *Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair*. The Neo World Program is home to Moose Sleigh Valley, the location of Neo Danganronpa 56. As this program was developed by Vivian, the Ultimate Programmer, it is essentially free of bugs or vulnerabilities to be exploited by outside parties.

## History

Shortly after arriving at Hope's Peak Academy, Vivian Tamochi approached Kyra Acker, a recent graduate who was now employed as a professor at the school, to request her help in developing a highly immersive virtual reality that synchronized with a user's brain. Kyra was skeptical of this idea. She pointed out that this kind of technology could easily be used to hold a Danganronpa killing game.

Vivian insisted that if the Ultimate Programmer and Ultimate Neuroscientist collaborated, they would be able to make a foolproof version of the program. She also suggested that such a program would earn them both renown and acclaim. Kyra, disgusted, refused to listen to Vivian any further.

Later, Nero Tamochi visited Kyra in her office. Kyra was annoyed to see him, but mentioned his sister's earlier visit and her proposed Neo World Program. Nero was instantly intrigued and encouraged Kyra to move forward with the plan. He told her that she could use the program to create a killing game of her own. He became aggressive, cornering Kyra as he made his case for despair. Kyra became overwhelmed with the situation and quickly caved, agreeing to help build the program.

## Development

Vivian and Kyra worked on the program throughout the school year of 2020-21. In addition to the Neo World Program, Vivian developed Alter Ego, an artificial intelligence program whose job was to maintain the virtual world. After the Tragedy, Kyra continued working on the program on her own.

After the events of Neo Danganronpa 55, Vivian met Kyra again when she joined the Future Foundation. Having had all her memories of her time at school erased, she didn't remember Kyra at first, but after receiving treatment from her, she remembered what happened at Hope's Peak, including her work on the NWP. She and Kyra resumed collaborating on the program.

When the Remnants of Despair were captured, the Future Foundation debated on what to do with them. Vivian suggested rehabilitating them using the Neo World Program. However, Isaac Stoke opposed this idea, only approving it as a last resort for fear of it resulting in another killing game. Vivian and Kyra spent some time developing the program, preparing it to be used for rehabilitation if it became necessary.

When it was ready to be tested, Vivian and Kyra were assisted by Isaac Stoke, Avani Korrapati, Aria Abe, Keiko Matsuda, and Marielle Morley. They all spent time inside the program, detecting any issues that need to be resolved.

After several months of normal rehabilitation through intensive therapy, the Remnants of Despair made full recoveries, and thus the program was no longer needed. It was decommissioned by the Future Foundation, and locked away in a basement to which only Vivian and Kyra had keys. Kyra modified the program in secret, adding several functions and modifying the game world to make it more suitable for a killing game.

## Usage

The Neo World Program places the user in a virtual world by synchronizing directly with the user’s brain. By mounting a device to the cranium, the program is able to interface directly with the user’s brain. During the course of the program, the user’s body is housed in a Physical Player Unit (PPU), and is kept in a sleep-like state, as if they’re dreaming. PPUs are long, narrow "pods" inside which a user lies while using the program.

The NWP creates the ultimate reality -- a virtual world so realistic that the user’s brain thinks that the world around them is real. Vivian did not intend to give the program the ability to manipulate players' memories, but Kyra develops this feature herself for use in her killing game.

When a person is inside the NWP, their perception of time moves approximately twelve times faster than in reality. For example, if a user spends two real-world hours inside the simulation, they will experience the passage of a full 24 hours inside the program.

## Avatars

When the Neo World Program is booted up, an avatar is created for each user residing in a Physical Player Unit, or PPU. An avatar is a 3D model constructed from the user’s mental image of themself. The consciousness of the person in the PPU is uploaded into that avatar.

An avatar will remain in the virtual world until the NWP shuts down, where it will be deleted from the program’s memory. It will stay there even if the user has logged out of the virtual world and exited their PPU. The NWP has a small amount of storage reserved for cached avatars that do not need to be created upon bootup, but only up to 7 avatars can be stored in this manner. This has the effect that if a hypothetical Person A were to completely log out of the program, their avatar would stay in the virtual world until the NWP was completely shut down, though it would be unable to do anything without a human’s consciousness being uploaded into it. However, if Person B were to get into Person A’s PPU and log in, Person B’s consciousness would be uploaded into Person A’s avatar. Person B would not have an avatar of their own unless the NWP was completely rebooted. The only exception is if Person B already has an avatar stored in memory. In this case, Person A’s avatar would be deleted from the virtual world and Person B’s avatar would be instantiated in its place.

This is the aspect of the program Kyra exploited when she tricked Annie into killing her father in Chapter 1 of Neo Danganronpa 56. After arranging for Annie to be inside the break room at a specified time, Kyra logged out of the program and put Hughes inside her PPU. Because Hughes did not have an avatar saved in the program, he took on the avatar of the last person to inhabit his PPU: Kyra. After Annie killed the person she believed to be Kyra, the real Kyra re-entered her PPU and rejoined the program. She returned to the same avatar she had before, which had been damaged when Hughes was killed. Monokuma was then able to repair the avatar.

It remains to be seen to what extent an avatar can be damaged before rendering it unusable by a living person.