The canon of where Megaten: Imagine really is. Or is it?...

I've been asked a couple of times by some people who were never familiar with Megaten's story as to where this all originated. Always, a lot of people assume it's another take on the Persona series, but as I point out to their disappointment, it's not.
(Sorry folks NO Metatron or Beelzebub in this one...unless Cave decides to port them)

Players who get treated to the lengthy intro after the Act Zero tutorial may be scratching their heads as to what the relevance of these events are depicted and who are the silhouettes featured in the intro and why are they so important.

*there are slight spoilers here so read at your own risk so don't go flaming me on-line for some revelations*

In the intro, it mentions a freak accident in 199x that involves a teleportation device which brings about demons appearing in the mortal realm. The creator of this particular device is named Steven (the gentleman we saw sitting on a wheelchair). And his relevance? You are looking at the creator of the COMP system that every DB (Devil Buster) player wears on their character. And the teleportation device mentioned is the Terminal System (that revolving pillar in every major town has that is used for teleporting around in most Megaten games)

And you're wondering why he developed it? It was mostly an experiment to help create instantaneous travel between computer networks, but something in the coding caused a rift in the nether-realms or makai. At this time Steven was a perfectly healthy lab tech brainchild of the Terminal system when he and his research team decided to boot up Terminal, until Terminal connected to the makai realm and summoned a demon. That said demon decided to rampage about and pretty much maul Steven leaving him wheelchair bound, and Steven wasn't exactly happy at this grievous misfortune brought upon him, and this was his primary motivation in developing the COMP in the first place. Plus as an added note of trivia, if you can find his artwork, he's clearly a homage to theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.

But this particular research didn't go unnoticed, and as you can imagine particular parties were very interested in Terminal. And these parties are the two major factions that are present in SMT: Imagine-The Chaos aligned Gaians and the Law aligned Messians and their respective churches/cities of Arcadia in Shinagawa and Souhanzan in Ueno.

And as most players have dealt with these factions on-line, these two radical parties have been fighting each other even before all the events in the original Megaten as the game implies. Gaians believe that Mother Gaia has been neglected by Mankind and the reappearance of demons are reawakened gods brought out by Mother Gaia to protect itself and hopefully repair the damage caused by man. Messians on the other hand believe in the establishment of The Thousand Year Kingdom, a Paradise created by God or His Chosen and only a select few are privy to this Salvation. In the original Megaten there is prominent character that later gets involved in SMT: Imagine.

*spoiler*

As most players know, the main antagonist in SMT:Imagine is the deadly ex-Gaian worshiper Ogami who has been targetting Home shelters and masaccring the artificial humanoid Innocents as sacrifices for The Overseer.

The Overseer that is mentioned during Act 16's cutscene prior to the boss battle of the Possessed Ogami, DB Mikanagi made reference to "a military man of the past". This particular military figure that Mikanagi refers to is the JSDF (Japanese Self Defense Force) General who was responsible for bringing about the Great Destruction-General Gotou. In the original Megaten he instigated a coup d' état when he discovered Steven's Terminal System can help him create a Gaian army of demons to battle Thor (who is disguised is an American Ambassador who sanctions a nuclear strike on Japan to prevent the demons from amassing) and thwart his Messian agenda.

I geeked out when I heard the remixed battle music for Gotou's boss encounter, plus when Possessed Ogami grabbed that katana and saw the black youki that emanated from it, it just reaffirmed my realization that I get to kick his resurrected ass again with a smile.

The other shadows featured in the rest of the intro are the four main protagonists in Megaten, the Neutral Hero Kazuya, The Heroine Yuka, The Law Hero Yuji and my personal fave Chaos Hero Takeshi. (In Kazuma Kaneko's Complete Illustration Works the 3 male heroes were given alternate names, Kazuya was renamed as Futsuo, Yuji was renamed Yoshio and Takeshi was called Waruo) And just like in most Megaten games your choices affect what path the story will take and what alignment, and clearly from the current setting of SMT: Imagine the neutral path was taken...but this is where it gets interesting.

Canonically we should be playing Megaten 2, but it seems we were thrown into a new "what if...?" (maybe) here where us the players are the Chosen, thus seemingly negating the existence of the heroes in SMT 2. Tokyo Millenium is replaced, and we get Shinjuku Babel. The JSDF that should've been obliterated during the events of SMT 1 are brought back under the leadership of Steel-Willed Yamamoto. And instead of a Messian run Tokyo Millenium we get the neutral shelters of Home III. So thus leaving us with an interesting quandary: Was this an oversight on Cave and Atlus' part, or an intentional decision so as to create a fresh take on the original Megaten franchise? Or will the developers follow up in upcoming chapters? Are we playing the 50 year gap between SMT 1 and SMT 2, and probably reveal more events that may lead us to the beginning of SMT 2? Interesting questions to ponder yes?

Anyways, feel free to comment and discuss this. I look forward to your thoughts.