EarthBound takes place sometime in the 1990s (being the only reference to the year in the game is represented with "199X"), several years after the events of Mother, in the fictional country of Eagleland, a parody of the United States. The player starts as a young boy named Ness[nb 2] as he investigates a nearby meteorite crash[10] with his neighbor, Pokey,[11][nb 3] to find his neighbor's brother Picky. They find that an alien force, Giygas, has enveloped and consumed the world in hatred and consequently turned animals, humans, and objects into malicious creatures. A small, beetle-like creature from the future named Buzz-Buzz instructs Ness to collect melodies in a Sound Stone from eight Sanctuaries to preemptively stop the force,[12] but is killed shortly thereafter when Pokey and Picky's mother mistakes him for a pest. On his journey to visit the sanctuaries, Ness visits the cultists of Happy Happy Village, where he saves Paula, and the zombie-infested Threed, where the two of them fall prey to a trap. After Paula telepathically instructs Jeff in a Winters boarding school to rescue them, they continue to Saturn Valley, a village filled with a species of creatures called Mr. Saturn, the city of Fourside, and the seaside resort Summers. Meanwhile, Poo, the prince of Dalaam, undergoes training called "Mu Training" before joining the party as well.[11]
