Aura(.hack)

Aura is perhaps the most mysterious and most important person in the entire .hack franchise. She is an A.I. placed inside The World, a popular, yet fictional MMORPG.

Aura's History. Spoilers ahead.

In the beginning of the storyline, a German programmer named Harold Hoerwick fell in love with Emma Weiland, who wrote the Epitaph of Twilight. After she died, Harold became delerious, and created Fragments, the World's prototype, to fulfill the Epitaph.

The system was intended to create the Ultimate AI, and was run by an inferior AI named Morganna, who was intended to create and awaken Aura. Aura's birth would signify a new age, a bridge between mankind and computers, Harold's love for Emma, and Emma's brilliance as a poet.

Aura in .hack//sign.

In .hack//sign, Aura is asleep, since Morganna hasn't yet gathered enough data to awaken her. Morganna is intentionally trying to keep Aura asleep because she realized she would die if Aura was awakened. Morganna managed to imprison the consciousness of Tsukasa, the story's protagonist, into The World, and linked his emotions to Aura's development, manipulating him so that Aura could never awaken. At the end of the series, Aura fortunately awakened correctly, allowing Tsukasa to log out of the game. However, Aura's awakening also in turn activated the Phases, AI programs originally programmed to gather data for Aura's development, but where modified by Morganna into invincible NPC monsters to capture her.

Aura in .hack video games.

A few months after SIGN, The World has gone under some severe problems, including invincible monsters and hacked graphics. This is partly part of Morganna's plan to capture Aura, which included restricting Aura's ability to edit game data like most other AI's. This was unfortunate, since it prevented Aura's Data Drain ability, a technique that allowed her to edit game data, which was nessecary for her to become complete. She was able to form this power into an Installation file, however, and gave it to Kite, the game's main protagonist. This gave him the Twilight Bracelet, which let him Data Drain. This was the only power capable of defeating the Phases.

However, when Kite encountered the first Phase, Skeith, It managed to Data Drain Aura, scattering her data throughout the World in fragments. Kite defeated Skeith, creating Cubia in return. Fortunately, Aura's consciousness was still functional, so she was able to send corrupted E-mail messages to him. When Aura became complete, there was only Cubia and the final phase, Corbenic, left to deal with. Aura told Kite not to confront Cubia, who was invincible, but Kite did anyway, and destroyed the Bracelet to destroy Cubia, since they were one and the same. However, this made it impossible for the final Phase to be defeated, and over twenty million people would die. Kite fought the final Phase anyway, but when he was about to deliver the final blow to it (which wouldn't of killed it anyway) Aura got in the way, killing her.

This allowed Morganna to shut down, and Aura, who had collected data on positive emotions, merged with Morganna, who got data on negative emotions, which created Aura in her incarnation as the Ultimate AI. From then on, Aura became an omnipresent force within the Internet. Aura became like a god to the Internet, having full power over it, yet preferring to intervene as little as possible except in situations like .hack//Legend of the Twilight and the ending to the games where Aura restores Mia, the Bracelet, The World, and Net Slum.

Aura in .hack//Legend of the Twilight.

In the manga segment of the .hack project, Aura was constantly hunted down by CC Corp. at no avail. She did however, hold a contest, posing as an Administrator, and gave Shugo and Rena the Kite and Blackrose avatars, respectively. She then decided to give Shugo the Twilight Bracelet, hoping to help him fulfill his dream to become a hero, which he told her about back a few months after SIGN, mistaking her as another player. She also had a supposed daughter named Zefie, an AI that was as powerful as Aura, but had an extremely wild and uncontrollable personality, even going as far as to give people's characters pink afro's for the fun of it. Zefie was created for two reasons. One was to complete Aura by allowing her to experience child birth, and the other was to help Shugo with his goal.