The world of SciADV is a world much like our own, with bustling cities and people going about their daily lives. However, unbeknownst to the general populace, the sinister group known as the Committee of 300
lurks in the shadows, controlling various powerful organizations and leading them in their mission to establish dominion over the world and reduce its human population to a manageable billion. Their goal: to create a utopia without wars or conflict, a world where the human mind is enslaved to their collective will. The various stories follow different groups of ordinary people who nevertheless get themselves entangled into the Evil Plan of a Committee-controlled organization, and find themselves with the daunting task of fighting a conspiracy that towers over them and everyone they know.
The series is part of the collaboration between Japanese visual novel developer nitro+ and video game manufacturer 5pb./MAGES. Currently, the Science Adventure series covers six visual novels that are the mainline entries, though there are oodles of side material (manga, audio dramas, etc.) and fan discs that act as companion pieces to the mainline entries. The series is primarily written by Naotaka Hayashi (sole writer of Chaos;Head, Robotics;Notes, and all but one route of Steins;Gate), with idea guy Chiyomaru Shikura, the CEO of MAGES., music composed by Takeshi Abo and Zizz Studio, other supporting writers, and featuring character designs by artists including Mutsumi Sasaki and Huke.
Another series of visual novels (and other media) by the same creators exist under the Science Visual Novels Series (or SVN) name and is made up of Occultic;Nine and Anonymous;Code. They exist in a different shared universe than the SciADV Series (though the SciADV games do however exist as their fictional game versions in this universe). Or so we were originally told until Shikura held a livestream in 2017 stating that SVN isn't a separate series, but rather it's the Western nickname he made up for SciADV, alongside the fact that the O;N visual novel removed all the S;G references in its script.
A list of the main works in the series:
- Chaos;Head (updated version titled Chaos;Head Noah)
- Steins;Gate
- RoboticsNotes (updated version titled Robotics;Notes Elite)
- Chaos;Child
- Steins;Gate 0 (updated version will be titled Steins;Gate 0 Elite if it's ever released)
- Occultic;Nine
- Robotics;Notes DaSH
- Anonymous;Code
- Steins;??? (in development)
A list of the spin-off games in the series:
- Chaos;Head Love Chu Chu!
- Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace
- Steins;Gate: Variant Space Octet
- Steins;Gate: Linear Bounded Phenogram
- Chaos;Child Love Chu Chu!!
Tropes common to all instalments in the SciADV Series:
- The Anime of the Game: Most of the mainline entries either have received or will receive an anime adaptation.
- Big Bad: The Committee of 300 are the overall villains of the series, as they plan to reduce humanity to a population of one billion and unite the remainder under a single totalitarian utopia where peace is maintained through the eradication of free will. Every individual Big Bad has some kind of connection to them, direct or otherwise.
- Dystopia: What the Committee of 300 intend to create in the future and what the main characters of each game are trying to stop, whether they know it or not.
- Evil Only Has to Win Once: Each entry in the series chronicles a new plan created by the Committee of 300 that are meant to result in the deaths of over 5 billion people, with the remaining populace of 1 billion to be subjugated under their rule. The cast of each entry fight what's essentialy a war spanning over a decade to retain their freedom and end their tyranny.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Every installment uses a semicolon between two words.
- Science Fiction: As the title suggests, the primary genre for each game, using real scientific concepts and theories, but also crossing over into fictional territory, using non-accurate science.
- Chaos;Head and Chaos;Child focus on individuals with reality-altering powers.
- Steins;Gate and Steins;Gate 0 focus on Time Travel.
- Robotics;Notes and Robotics;Notes DaSH focuse on giant robots and virtual reality technology.
- Anonymous;Code focuses on earth simulators and individuals with the power to see the future.
- Shared Universe: Constant references, Continuity Nods and characters appear between each installment, some more obvious than others.
- Thematic Series: The stories all take place in the same world, and all of them deal with a group of characters taking down a conspiracy, but minus 2 of the entries, each entry rarely reference the stories outside of their specific duology (for example, you'll rarely see Steins;Gate making references to Chaos;Child), the main unifying factor is the villain, the Committee of 300. That being said, Steins;Gate has oodles upon oodles of Chaos;Head references and nods confirm that "Yes, Chaos;Head did indeed happen a year before Steins;Gate". Robotics;Notes heavily relies on returning plot points from both Chaos;Head and Steins;Gate, Chaos;Child is a direct sequel to Chaos;Head's aftermath, and DaSH requires nearly every entry before it to be fully understood in its' entirety due to its content.
- Trademark Favorite Drink: Each Protagonist has one of these:
- For Takumi it's Coke.
- For Okabe it's Dr. Pepper.
- For Takuru it's Mountian Dew.
- For Pollon it's 7Up.
- The only exception from this rule is Kaito. He instead has a Trademark Favorite Food in the form of "Space Candy".
