The Loops

"To spoil... it is a thing of beauty!" This article contains heavy spoilers about the story or world of Undead Unluck. Read at your own risk!

The Loops are the cycle of creation and destruction wrought by God so it may continue to play with humans in its game with Luna.

Overview[]

Despite their name bringing to mind the concept of time loops, the Loops involve no time travel, possible paradoxes or changes in causality. When a Loop nears its end, Ragnarok begins and God descends upon Earth to battle the Negators and destroy the world; preventing this is the Union's main goal. There are a total of 101 Loops, the story currently takes place in the 101st - when this Loop ends, the game between Sun and Luna will be over, a winner will be declared and the Earth will not be created again should it be destroyed. The destruction brought by Sun's victory is absolute; the only way to avoid it and move on to the next Loop is through the Ark or Undead.

Loops are almost identical to each other, but it is completely possible to alter their course to a degree through knowledge of the Loops or the order in which UMA are added. New people and events may still appear, shown through Juiz's ignorance of Billy's betrayal, the unforeseen appearance of Ruin and the addition of Seal as a regulator. However, Negations are tied to the user's soul and their manifestation cannot be prevented.

Reincarnation[]

Each Loop contains the same people, who are reincarnated from their previous selves in the last Loop. It seems human souls retain the knowledge from previous incarnations, but only a tiny amount of subconscious memory can be accessed, seen through occasional dreams or feelings of nostalgia. Given that people develop along an almost identical path this knowledge is vague and largely useless; the exception being that someone whose previous incarnation lived for millennia has such a sheer volume of information they gain a clearer picture of them. Remember can also be used unlock these memories.

Notably, Artifacts also reincarnate and retain memories from previous Loops which may be consulted by touching them; most artifacts impart trivial visions while a few contain so many memories the viewer becomes incapacitated by the flood of information.

In contrast, UMAs appear to retain no memories on any level: In fact, Spoil states that they do not have childhood memories, but that they only remember one order: "Use your rules to make humans suffer". Beast, Soul and Language directly remember previous Loops, even if they were previously slain - it is therefore very likely that at least the Ten Superior Rules have memories of the previous Loops.

The Ark Rider is not reincarnated and their "place" is simply left empty, as such there never are two versions of the same person at one time. Since Juiz was "born" before the addition of Sex and therefore parents, her reincarnation was placed as the child of a couple that would normally have no children.

Process[]

A Loop goes through the following steps:

The Earth is recreated after the previous Ragnarok, beginning with only the current Master Rules active until further UMAs are added. This simply involves God creating the planet and then letting nature take its course, it still takes billions of years to complete. The fragments of the previous Earths remain in orbit.
Luna places the next set of Artifacts.
History takes roughly the same steps, with the same people being born in the same order and the world developing at the same rate. Once humans start being born, the reincarnations of previous loops' people are born. There is mention of "fate" by Apocalypse, but anyone with sufficient information can alter the course of history to a degree. Furthermore souls may cause themselves may be born earlier, shown in the 101st Loop's Sean and Top.
The Ark Rider is returned to Earth, closer to Ragnarok each time.
Apocalypse is found and the Quests begin, through which Negators may avoid penalties and accrue rewards in preparation for the battle with God.
Ragnarok begins and God kills everyone on Earth, save for the Ark Rider who is safe on the Moon.
One UMA is promoted to Master Rule, meaning their Rule will never disappear even if they are slain.
The Ark Rider is subjected to extreme time dilation while God prepares to create the next Earth.

Relevant Previous Loops[]

The events of most Loops are completely unknown, but following are some events related to the Loops that have been stated or can be reasonably assumed.

1st Loop[]

As described by Beast, in the beginning there was God, the Earth and Man.
Sun and Luna decide to have a game to see if their creations can reach them; Sun bets on the Rules and Luna bets on Humans.
Luna creates the Artifacts, Including the Three Sacred Spirit Treasures: Rebellion, Aegis and The Heart.
Soul, the first rule, is added.
Death and Justice are also added at some point, as indicated by the existence of their vessels.
Juiz and Victor are "born" and gain Unjustice and Undead respectively.
Apocalypse and the Ark are found by Juiz and Victor, who form the 1st Union to defeat God.
The First Ragnarok takes place and the Earth is destroyed, Victor survives it due to Undead and Juiz uses the Ark to move to the next Loop. Juiz remains as the Ark Rider for 99 loops.
Soul is promoted to Master Rule.

2nd to 99th Loops[]

Juiz loops for the first time and upon coming back and being horrified by Victor's wait, becomes determined on finding a way for him to die.
Death is added to instill panic. Later, she is promoted to Master Rule.
Change is added to instill jealously. Later, she is promoted to Master Rule.
Luck is added to incite rash behavior. Later, they are promoted to Master Rule.
Justice is added to instill conflict. Later, they are promoted to Master Rule.
War is added to incite mass slaughter. Later, he is promoted to Master Rule.
Time and Language are promoted to Master Rules.
Beast is added to create a new kind of enemy for humans to struggle with. Later, he is promoted to Master Rule.
Sick is promoted to Master Rule.
Juiz uncovers the mechanics of the Quests, such as passing on sets and sharing points.
At some point, a team composed of Juiz, Victor, Void, Gina and Nico battle Spoil, leading to Nico's death.
Juiz hones her sword skills over millennia - she becomes so proficient that, alongside her negation, she is able to single-handedly defeat members of the Ten Superior Rules.

100th Loop[]

Circa 1820, after recovering Remember for the first time, Victor tries to kill Juiz; having given up on defeating God he hopes she may be free of fighting and live peacefully. She manages to insert it into Victor's head and commands the artifact to erase Victor's memories. He is buried as a casualty of the battle but Undead creates a second identity to get around Remember's effect: Andy. He has no memories and becomes a wanderer hoping to meet someone who knows his past. He is later captured by the Union but manages to escape.
On April 11th, 1972, Akira Kuno finds the G-Liner and is imparted with total knowledge of the current Loop but gains the Unknown negation so he cannot share it. In this vision, Fuuko is killed by Sean during the battle against Autumn, which will set off a chain of events that lead to the Union's defeat and the loss of any hope of ever defeating God. He develops his drawing skills and uses the G-Liner to create an avatar that is unaffected by Unknown; through this he pens To You, From Me to share some of his knowledge but leaves out key events in order to not prevent the growth that would happen as a result of Billy's betrayal, the Four Seasons Quests and Fuuko experiencing Andy's past.
At some point, Billy gained knowledge of the Loop and secretly formed Under.
In 2010, Fuuko Izumo becomes Unluck, accidentally killing 270 people, including her parents. After this, she becomes a recluse for the next ten years but becomes a devoted fan of To You, From Me, which delays her suicide.
On August 1st, 2020, Fuuko is about to commit suicide but meets Andy, who takes an interest in her in order to die.
After killing Void and Gina, Andy and Fuuko join the Union.
After the Four Seasons Quest Set is revealed, Billy betrays the Union and steals the Roundtable, not knowing its the Ark he is looking for, but fails to capture Apocalypse.
After three of the Four Seasons are killed, a phenomenon similar to Revolution begins, speeding up Ragnarok. The Union attempts to delay it using various UMAs but Nico, manipulated by Ghost, kills them.
Ragnarok begins and Juiz chooses Fuuko to be the next and last Ark Rider.
Rebellion and Aegis are used in the same Loop for the first time.
Through the joined efforts of the Union and Under, Fuuko manages to Loop.
Galaxy is promoted to Master Rule.

101st Loop[]

At some point, Andy travels to the Sun and learns to master his own soul over millions of years in order to stop the Ten Superior Rules from leaving the Master Room.
Circa 1800, Fuuko is placed back on Earth, where she uses the memories in artifacts to become extremely wealthy to finance the Union by buying resource-rich land. She ultimately becomes a multi-billionaire but is totally unknown to the public.
At some point, Fuuko finds and tames Move in order to use its portals.
Fuuko sets out to prevent the tragedies of all the Negators she knew in a past to create the "Ultimate Union". She doesn't recruit Akira, who she saves from becoming Unknown and leaves to have a peaceful life with his mother.
Fuuko uses the penalty for passing on Quests to skip into the future without risking the death of members.
Currently, the Roundtable has 17 seats, the most its ever had.
After neutralizing Beast and Language and incapacitating Ruin, Andy leaves the sun, releasing the Master Rules which trigger Ragnarok early. Luna calls this event "the final Ragnarok."

Trivia[]

After Beast's defeat, Soul mentions something called the "Validated World" that may be ushered in and during Ruin's assault on the Union he claims that "Only Undead and Unruin, those blessed with eternal life, may move on to the Perfect World"; alongside Sun's epithet as "The One Who Validates This World" this implies the existence of a "final" world after the Loops - however any details or even whether its a literal place is unclear.