The Tragedy

The Tragedy is a major event in the Danganronpa series. It began around one year before the School Life of Mutual Killing incident that befell the students of Class 78.

The incident had been described by various people as being an extraordinary form of social unrest, which quickly culminated into uncontrolled, meaningless chaos, violence, and death. This incident was caused by Junko Enoshima and the Ultimate Despair.

Pre-Incident
Facing financial shortcomings, Hope's Peak Academy decided to allow students without excellent abilities to attend the academy for an immensely high fee in the hopes of continuing its search for the best talents.

These unremarkable students were placed in the "reserve course" and, though having paid immense sums of money and fought through hotly-contested examinations, were eventually treated as nothing more than "second-class" students by the main faculty and main course students.

Hajime Hinata, in an attempt to become part of the main course he long admired, applied for an experiment for artificial augmentation, renaming himself Izuru Kamukura and in the process gaining the title of Ultimate Hope; however, his existence was kept a secret from even the main course students.

The Tragedy
Junko Enoshima, in her desire to spread despair, forced the Student Council of Hope's Peak into the first known mutual-killing game, which killed all but Izuru and the heavily wounded student council president Soshun Murasame. This was broadcasted to the reserve course, resulting in unabatable unrest at seeing the school apparently having spent the schools funds they had paid to "create" murderers.

The reserve course then rebelled and protested, not knowing that they were being led and agitated from the shadows by Junko and her organization, Ultimate Despair. This social unrest soon became a movement that spread outside the academy's walls, turning more and more violent until violence and death became a normal part of society.

Hope's Peak Academy then decided that, in light of the drastic development, they had no choice but to cease operations as an educational facility, effectively transforming the school into a shelter for the remaining students. Unfortunately for Hope's Peak Academy, this plan was doomed to fail, leading directly to the events of the first game.

Junko Enoshima hijacked the plan from the inside of this locked-down facility by killing headmaster Jin Kirigiri and erasing the memories of the other survivors except those of her fellow conspirator and twin sister, Mukuro Ikusaba.

In-Game Description
The biggest, most awful, most tragic event in all of Hope's Peak Academy’s history was only the beginning to what would be the world's end. The biggest, most awful, most tragic event in all of Hope's Peak Academy’s history caused the reserve course students to rebel…

At first, it was optimistically thought that everything would calm down soon, but the situation worsened and quickened its pace. The movement happened on the Internet, and formed a community of its own.

Soon, not just students were involved, but came to include people of various races and nationalities in its development and spread off the internet and into real life.

At the beginning of the movement, it involved demonstrations regarding social issues, but as it spread through the world, its abnormality began to show. At some point in time, the motives and modus operandi changed, and left behind only meaningless destruction and violence.

Strong people killed weak people…

Weak people murdered even weaker people…

Weak people formed factions and lynched strong people

As the violence and death spread, people became desensitized. As if time had gone backwards, people took death to become a certainty. The media reports overflowed with death, and people ate as they watched. By the time the world had noticed the abnormality, it was already too late.

The overpowering “despair” became a huge wave that swallowed up the world in the blink of one’s eye…

Soon, terrorists and coup d’etats sprang up and caused the despair that is war. It wasn’t war that happened due to the clash of ideals, religion or profits…It was just war.

Pure war.

Therefore, no way to solve the problem was found. However…how did what was originally a students’ movement develop into such a despair-worthy situation? This was because of…the existence of “a certain group of people”.

It revolved around the “certain student” who led Hope's Peak Academy to its destruction; a group called “Ultimate Despair”.

Their talents, recognized by Hope's Peak Academy, were used not “for the sake of causing hope for humanity”…They used their talents “for the sake of causing despair for humanity”. Those who held great power brainwashed ordinary citizens to spread despair…

Those who had talent with computers created software to spread despair…

Those who had great influence over people created new ideals to spread despair.

This is how the biggest, most awful, most tragic event in human history was produced. Indeed, as long as “Ultimate Despair” exists, this despair will not end…

The biggest, most awful, most tragic event in human history will not end…

Aftermath/Current Status
An organization, the Future Foundation, hoped to revert the world to the state it was in before the incident.

They saved the few who had managed to survive the Mutual Killing incident of Class 78. Makoto Naegi, Kyoko Kirigiri and Byakuya Togami and the other survivors would later join this foundation.

Shortly after they saved what was left of Class 78, the Future Foundation also found what was left of Ultimate Despair, left in utter disarray after the failure of the Mutual Killing incident.

Makoto Naegi, now of the 14th Division in the Future Foundation, had hoped to reform the members of Ultimate Despair by using the New World Program to replace the memories of their time in Hope's Peak Academy and therefore erase the memories of their heinous deeds; the higher-ups of the Future Foundation, however, did not share his sentiments, wanting to immediately dispose of Ultimate Despair members at first opportunity, and at one point ordering Naegi to return the survivors to them when they realized that they were in the 14th Division's custody. However, Naegi and other sympathetic members of the Future Foundation were so eager that, against the higher-ups, they pushed the Program upon the members of Ultimate Despair while the program was still in its testing phase.

This, unfortunately, backfired thanks to Hajime Hinata - as Izuru Kamukura - who uploaded AI Junko into the New World Program via a memory device, allowing her AI incarnation to run amok and cause catastrophic changes to the system (e.g. introducing violence into a program that supposedly had none), leading to the events of the second game.

In the Final Chapter, during the Graduation/Retention session, Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya had to go to the Island, and enter the Program to save the remaining students by activating Forced Shutdown (which required at least 8 people to activate, a number that they were short of because there was only five survivors left).