- "And there you have it. The number 9 is everywhere in this game. He's got a real theme of 9s for this whole thing. No wonder it's called the Nonary Game."
- — Lotus, on the Nonary Game
Nonary Game rules.
The Nonary Game is a game that Zero, the one who had started the game, described as a game where 9 people will have to put their lives on the line. The main goal is to escape the place they are held in captivity and seek a door that carries a 9.
The Nonary Game actually took place more than once, with the First Nonary Game and the Second Nonary Game being prominent events. The whole concept of the Nonary Game comes from its creator, Dashiell Gordain, an eccentric English millionaire who was a survivor of the Titanic's sinking and had sought to buy anything Titanic-related after the disaster.
Original Nonary Games
Gordain, the creator of the Nonary Games.
The original Nonary Games took place on the Gigantic, which Gordain bought in 1916, as it was one of the sister ships of the Titanic. Gordain would take young Englishmen who had accumulated massive debts and force them to play the Nonary Game. Gordain made the Nonary Game even more of a horrifying game, as he made his millionaire friends bet money on who would survive or die.
During Dashiell Gordain's Nonary Games, there was a ceremony at the end where those who had lost the game were executed, in a location known as the Hall of Ceremony. In the chapel, they prayed to the god they worshipped (presumably the god of Free the Soul), and in the Hall of Ceremony, they offered up living sacrifices. The ceremonial robes Snake is wearing were used in those ceremonies.[1]
After many years of Nonary Games, Gordain died of old age in 1931, but his successors continued the Nonary Games.
Later on, in one of the Nonary Games held by a successor, Gentarou Hongou, the CEO of Cradle Pharmaceutical, was forced to participate in the game, but emerged as the winner in the end. Hongou, who wanted to buy the Gigantic as part of his experiment on morphogenetic fields, convinced the successor and millionaires to sell the Gigantic to him, under the assumption that Hongou was planning to improve their version of the Nonary Game.
Hongou helped transform the Hall of Ceremony into an incinerator. The losers would burn in the incinerator as a sacrifice during the ceremony. While burning, they would wear Free the Soul robes.
First Nonary Game
The creators of the first Nonary Game celebrating in hopes of the success of the Nonary Project.
- Main article: First Nonary Game
The Gigantic was used as the setting of the Nonary Project, known as the First Nonary Game in 2018.
Second Nonary Game
- Main article: Second Nonary Game
9 years after the First Nonary Game, the Second Nonary Game took place in 2027 orchestrated by Zero.
Third Nonary Game
- Main article: Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition
45 years after the Second Nonary Game, the third Nonary Game took place in 2074. It was known as the Nonary Game: Ambidex Edition. It had significantly different features and game play than its predecessors. It also took place at an entirely new location. Much like the Second Nonary Game, its purpose was to foster the esper abilities of someone.