Grand Unification Theory (Part 7)

Dammit, almost another week since the last one.

Eh, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I didn't wanna double-up on posts, but even with that excuse, I shoulda done it Thursday.

I had the list pounded out in under 20 minutes, but...I dunno, wanted to let it stew an extra day to make sure I didn't miss anything important.

Coulda done it though.
Just lazy.

So...right, weaving all these bits and bobs into a cohesive timeline....

Or...The History Of Fiction.

Well, let's start with....Alien franchise.

Prometheus,  starts in some whatever-kajillion-years-BC, jumps ahead to 2089, and then the main action happens in 2093.

Aliens, Ripley was in stasis for 50 years, and a personnel file from a deleted scene shows the date as 2179.

So, that puts the date of Alien as 2129, and puts a 36 year gap between Prometheus, and Alien.

A gap which will no doubt be tightened up a bit by the Prometheus sequel.

Alien 3...we never get much of a sense for how long Ripley was frozen the second time...but it couldn't have taken long for the egg to hatch, so, I'll put it within the same year.

Then, Alien Resurrection, we jump ahead 400 years.

So, 2579.
The described datings probably aren't exact anyway.
People aren't mathematically precise in everyday conversation, they always round off.

But, it's close enough for my purposes.

Alien vs Predator vs Terminator I'm preeetty sure is 3 years after Resurrection, so, 2582.

That gives a nice baseline skeleton for us to build off of.

Throw in the AVP films, they happen in "present day", of whenever they came out, so...AVP1 came out in 2004, buuut, AVP 2 picks up immediately after, even though it came out in '07, so...that's '04 too.

But, due to those, the Predators splice in, and they're likewise within the years they came out, so, 1987, 1990, and 2010, for those.

And...due to AVPVT, the Terminators splice in..and those get a bit trickier...

For sure, T1 is 1984.

T2 came out in '91....but Eddie Furlong looks 13, no way John Conner would be that old by '91, but no way '97 would look like '91, and '97 was supposed to be when Judgement Day happens, so...I split the difference, and have that despite his looks, Furlong was playing 10, and it was '94.

T3 happens in '03, and there's no problems there.

T4, the prelude starts in '03, then the main action happens in 2018.

And, the future seen in T1, T2, and T3 is 2029.
The producers wanna give themselves elbow room for sequels with Bale-Conner, I guess.

But, all of that becomes moot from our perspective, because "Sarah Conner Chronicles", created an altered timeline.

Which is handy, cuz there's no other fucking way the AVP films, and a bunch of other stuff could fit in.

Now, since we're into Terminator-ville, Robocop fought the Terminators, and...Robocop gets even trickier....

A future date was never nailed down for Robocop.
Just a generic "sometime in the future", type future.

We know it's far enough in the future, that advanced cybernetics become possible, but only just, cuz Robo is slow, and clunky, and...it's also not so far in the future that the 80's look hasn't gone away.

And, we know from witnessing the real future, that 80's stuff has cycled back a couple times, and is once again in full bloom.

I gotta go with an alternate 2010's.
90's would've been way too soon, as it came out in '87.
2000's, still too soon, 2010's, just about right.
2020's, then you get into flying cars, and Bladerunner shit.

So, let's put Robocop 1 at 2010.
Robocop 2...looks like some stuff has happened, probably a couple years later, 2012.
Heh, now.
Robocop 3, a couple more years for that situation to decay, 2014.
So...Robocop vs Terminator, follows characters and events from 3, also written by Frank Miller, but, the whole "rehab", officer situation has magically gone away, so, another couple years to 2016.

Then, Robocop: Prime Directives, that's obviously sometime after 3, and press materials half-jokingly referenced RVT, so, another couple years, 2018.

This way, the first animated series, and the Marvel comics can cram in between 1-2, the live-action TV show can cram in between 2-3, and the (fairly recent) Frank Miller comics can cram in between 3 and RVT.

And, that fills out just right, and then the overall 8 years from R1 to RPD gives time for Murphy's son to grow up as seen in that story.

And, it butts right up against the T4 future.
Nice symmetry there.

Y'know...I actually think Robocop could be built now.
Just no one has the balls to try it.
We've got guys with artificial legs winning races, artificial hands are amazing now, and scientists have extracted the first images from the visual cortex with an MRI.
And we've already got RC drones fighting our shadow wars.
Just put the pieces together.

Anyway, T2 delayed Judgment Day from 1997 to 2003.
The Sarah Conner Chronicles (TSCC) delayed things to...we don't quite know when, but things were safe in their '07-08, and the AVP films were allowed to occur, ditto Predators, and the Robocops.

Robocop delayed the 2016 version of JD.

But...AVPVT says Judgement Day has to happen, because it's retconned into its past.

How about we split the difference at 2020, and the 2018 date on T4 is one of those time-corrected differences that doesn't matter so much?

Then, that has JD happening shortly after Weyland's TED talk, heheh.

Then, humanity rebuilds, the androids (formerly Terminators) erase the Skynet war from history, and then, the Aliens franchise plus AVPVT shakes out just right.

So, that's the AVPVTVR timeline as a baseline....

But, also remember, Superman and Batman fought the Aliens, Predators, and Terminators.

Well, those all plop into contemporaneous time easily enough....
*Thunk*

But also remember, Supes and Bats met Spidey and Hulk.

And Spidey met Transformers.

And Batman's trusty sidekick Robin, as the leader of the Titans, met the X-men, and X-Men met TOS, and TNG.

So, that splices in Transformers, and Trek.

Transformers The Movie happens in 2005.
Man, that seemed like a futuristic date back then, didn't it?
What actually happened in '05?
Revenge Of The Sith, and Batman Begins hit theaters, and I-Phones were 2 years away.
Nothing on the news about The Cybertronian Wars ending though.
Heh.

Beast Wars continues off that timeline, 400 years in the future, and 3 million years in the past.

And Trek...actually weaves in pretty well.

Cochrane's time of the 2060's fits into the rebuilding years after The Skynet War, and that can be the WWIII of Star Trek.

Then, the mess is cleaned up by the time of Prometheus, and their hyperdrive can be Cochrane drive.
Cuz, a wormhole is a wormhole.

Course...time displacement platforms are a form of warp/wormhole...so maybe Cochrane stole warp from Skynet...hmmm....there's a fanfic for someone to write...

Anyway, that fits in rather well, then Enterprise drops into the gap between Alien and Aliens.

Then, all of mainline Trek, from TOS to Voyager, goes from 2265, to 2390-something.
Which drops right in to the gap between Alien 3, and Resurrection.

Now, there may seem an inconsistency with Alien-verse and Starfleet ships, but, remember, Trek has come across sleeper ships, sleeper ships by their nature can be out of the loop, as the gap from Alien/Aliens shows, and Starfleet has occasionally employed stasis beds, and Starfleet isn't the only game in town in space travel.

So, that's my commentary/buildup, let's display the timeline that results from all this...

Beast Wars (past)- 3 million BC
Superman vs Spiderman- 1976
Superman and Spiderman- 1981
Batman vs Hulk- 1981
X-men Teen Titans 1982
Transformers- 1984
Spiderman meets Transformers- 1984
Terminator 1984
Predator- 1987
Predator 2- 1990
Batman vs Predator- 1991
T2- 1994
Batman vs Predator 2- 1995
Superman vs. Aliens 1995
Star Trek/x-men 1996
Judgement day (original, T2) 1997
Batman vs Predator 3- 1997
TNG Xmen- 1998
Batman vs Aliens- 1998
Superman vs. Terminator 1999
Superman vs Predator- 2000
Superman vs Aliens 2- 2002
Batman vs Aliens 2- 2003
T3- 2003
T4- 2003 (beginning)
AVP 2004
AVP: Requiem- 2004
Transformers the movie- 2005
Superman and Batman vs Aliens and Predator- 2007
Sarah Conner chronicles- altered 2008-09 from an altered 1994
Predators- 2010
Robocop 2010
Robocop 2 2012
Robocop 3 2014
Robocop vs Terminator 2016
Robocop Prime Directives 2018
Terminator: Salvation- 2018
Weyland TED talk (Prometheus)- 2020
T1, 2, 3, future 2029
Star Trek: First Contact (past) 2063
Prometheus- 2089-2093
Alien- 2129
Enterprise- 2151-2155
Aliens- 2179
Alien 3- 2179
Alien vs Predator(comics) -21??-22?? 
Star Trek 2265-239?
Beast Wars (future)- 24??
Beast Machines- 24??
Alien Resurrection- 2579 
Aliens vs Predator vs Terminator- 2582


Aaand, like I promised last time, that's got all the big chunks.

Even that's a skeleton.
IMHO, you can use that to drop in pretty much everything else in Crossover-land in the year it happened.

Going all the way back to...fuggin' cave paintings.

Up next, I'll weave all that into a general narrative.