"An alien spacecraft will lead to you becoming Gods? You guinea pigs are such fools. You cling to fantasies by desperately rationalizing them."
The Oracle of Maia (マイアの託宣, Maia no Takusen)? is a rumor spread by Nyarlathotep and written by Tatsuya Sudou in Persona 2: Innocent Sin.
Contents of the Poem
Profile[]
Persona 2[]
Innocent Sin[]
Nyarlathotep dictated the poem to Sudou and made him believe that it was a prophecy from Maian aliens. According to Mrs. Ideal, if the prophecy is fulfilled, the aliens will manifest as thoughtforms to wipe out humanity and guide all the survivors to enlightenment and godhood. Sudou conversely passed it to Akinari Kashihara, who then spread it to Mrs. Ideal, and the three complied the prophecies to the supposedly mystical tome In Lak'ech. In reality, the events in the prophecy were bogus and nonsensical and were likely deliberately so for the sake of showing Philemon that humanity would ultimately destroy itself, but were being transformed into reality by Nyarlathotep and his pawns. Mrs. Ideal and Kashihara originally did not want the prophecies to come to a pass and kept everything secret, but when Kashihara committed suicide and Nyarlathotep began impersonating him to approach his son Jun Kurosu, he manipulated the boy into madness and tricked him into carrying out the events dictated on the prophecies for him, making him believe that he is going to enlighten humanity and advance it to a golden age. Nyarlathotep personally admits that he does not believe in the prophecies at all and openly dismisses them as nonsense upon being confronted by the party for the first time.
Within the game itself, the Masked Circle, led by Joker (actually Jun, who has degenerated into a barely recognizable madman), advances the prophecies by staging seemingly irrelevant events whose initial goal seems to be absorbing Ideal Energy from the participants as Nyarlathotep stands on the sidelines. All of these events will advance the prophecy as soon as they occur, and the party fails to stop it from advancing because they can't comprehend what they are dealing with. After several lines of the prophecy are fulfilled, a group of super-advanced Nazis known as the Last Battalion appeared out of nowhere and reached Mt. Katatsumuri where Xibalba resides. After Joker's defeat, the entirety of Sumaru was raised above earth alongside it. While the bulk of the Battalion's forces was destroyed before reaching the location, Nyarlathotep himself, disguised as the Fuhrer, did manage to reach said core (as that is a part of the collective unconscious where he resides) and force a confrontation between himself and Philemon's champions. Despite he lost that battle, he manages to fulfill one of the last lines of the poem directly and personally by summoning an influenced Maya Okamura to kill Maya Amano with the Spear of Destiny, causing the Grand Cross to occur, halting the Earth's rotation and subsequently leading to its destruction from the violent inertia of all on the surface of the planet. This effectively means that Nyarlathotep won against Philemon by proving to him that humanity desires self destruction. The only part of Earth that survived the destruction of the planet was Sumaru City due to being risen up from the ground by the spaceship Xibalba.
However, Philemon is still determined to rig and reverse the outcome to his (and humanity's) favor, and appeared to the group of friends and gave them the possibility to negate the timeline by ensuring they had never met. All but Tatsuya Suou agreed, creating the Eternal Punishment timeline and killing the Innocent Sin one, undoing Nyarlathotep's victory. However, the dead timeline remained a threat due to Suou's refusal to surrender his memories of his friends, and became a major plot point known as the Other Side.
Eternal Punishment[]
In Eternal Punishment, due to In Lak'ech never being written, the Oracle failed to come true, although it was seen written on the walls of Sudou's room in the Sanitarium.
Poem[]
The seven Pleiades set the frozen time free
Wild dance, shadowed festival, foreign song ensue
As flames of expiation light the heavens
The lion's roar echoes far and wide
Five skulls glow in the depths of the earth
The holy cross shines high up in the sky
Once the star comes to a complete halt
The Maia Maiden's heart stops with it
What then remains is paradise on earth
Marking the end and a new beginning
The twinkling star of Pleiades sets time in motion;
Dance of pleasure, Feast of shadow, Tongue of stranger,
Atonement lights above.
The lion's roar echoes throughout...
The 5 skulls shine in Hades...
The holy cross shines in the Heavens...
The moment the stars stop rising...
The beat of the virgin Maia also ceases...
Paradise remains on Earth...
空に瞬く昴の星に 止まった刻は動き出す
享楽の舞 影達の宴 異国の詠
贖罪の迎え火は天を照らし
獅子の咆哮はあまねく響く
冥府に輝くは五なる髑髏
天上に輝くは聖なる十字架
天に昇りて星が動きを止める時
マイヤの乙女の鼓動も止まる
後に残るは地上の楽園
Explanation[]
- "The twinkling star of Pleiades sets time in motion": Joker and Principal Hanya reactivate the school clock in Seven Sisters High School.
- "Wild dance, shadowed festival, foreign song ensue" refers to the Kasugayama High School festival that Yasuo Inoe drained energy at and the Muses performance by Lisa Silverman, Mami Shibata and Miho Ogishima orchestrated by Ginji Sasaki. Lisa Silverman being a foreigner corresponds to the "foreign song" part.
- "As flames of expiation light the heavens, The lion's roar echoes far and wide" corresponds to the arson of the Aerospace Museum by Tatsuya Sudou/King Leo. The "lion's roar" refers to the leonid meteorite omen that appeared after the Nazis invade Sumaru.
- "Five skulls glow in the depths of the earth, the holy cross shines high up in the sky" refers to the Crystal Skulls owned by the Masked Circle to awaken Xibalba, which are aligned in a cross-shaped position.
- "Once the star comes to a complete halt, the Maia Maiden's heart stops with it" refers to the assassination of Maya Amano by the Spear of Destiny, which would trigger a world-destroying Grand Cross. Unlike the other lines (where Nyarlathotep only expected his pawns to carry out), he personally orchestrates this event after being defeated.
- "what then remains is paradise on earth, Marking the end and a new beginning": The earth is destroyed by the Grand Cross as Xibalba, with Sumaru atop of it, enters paradise, but Philemon undos Nyarlathotep's victory by creating the Eternal Punishment timeline.