Complete G1 Marvel comics continuity site going up soon...

[Sunyavadin]

...Is there anything anyone here wants to see added as a function of it?


I plan to have pages detailing each timeline created by the various time travellers, with viewable graphical timelines for each alternate continuity.
Each will have a page explaining the flow of events and how one story connects into the next, and which ones occur simultaneously with others, with a master timeline page detailing where every issue fits in.

In addition I currently have three appendices written for it;
Appendix 1: Marvel Multiverse explains how the reality designated 120185 fits into the Marvel Multiverse and where it has overlapped with other realities. Spiderman and Circuit Breaker get special mentions.
Appendix 2: “But of Death's Head... there was no trace...” explains Death's Head's...interesting... personal timeline, going into all his reality hopping and his involvement in events of multiple timelines. an interesting read if nothing else, yes?
Appendix 3: “Whose mind is it anyway?” goes into which timeline's Galvatron is likely created from which Megatron (Megatron or Straxus) and the implications of this.

Can anyone here offer suggestions for this page (Other than that I REALLY need to get a life?)

[spiderfrommars]

Can anyone here offer suggestions for this page (Other than that I REALLY need to get a life?)

What led to the events that made Unicron reach Cybertron sixteen years earlier than the movie? Is there a pivotal moment that caused the seperation in the timelines? (At the end of Target 2006 we are still on course for the movie future).

Also the whole mess of the alternate post-Time Wars timeline needs clarity as well as the discrepancy in datings. (We have two stories set on New Years Day 2009).

Sounds like it could make an interesting (if headache-inducing read). Many here have tried attempt it before!

[Sunyavadin]

Both of these points are covered, you'll be happy to hear.

I'm going over stories with a fine tooth comb, rooting out every interaction resulting from time travel which could impact the timeline.
What happened to cause Grimlock and co. to be fighting the Mayhems, and why we have several stories which occur on the same dates but cannot possibly occur in the same continuity, are topics which are definitely a major focus of this project, and have been for the last year I've spent working on it.

*Edit* For the concise answer to your Unicron query - Blame Unicron.
Seriously, nobody has thwarted his plans more than himself. Everything begins to change when he first creates the stable time loop leading to the movie at the end of Target:2006... From that point on, he's pretty much ensured that Galvatron is going to head back to 1987 at the end of the movie, which in turn will eventually create a future where more Transformers will come back from, creating further futures, until eventually the timeline resembles more of a time-plate-of-spaghetti.

[spiderfrommars]

Lovely... look forward to seeing it.

[Legion]

(At the end of Target 2006 we are still on course for the movie future).

more or less...

[Sunyavadin]

Well, there are a lot of "More or less"es when dealing with this much time travel, and alternate futures where the same people even exist (HIGHLY unlikely, given the butterfly effect - just by changing the flow of air around you through your presence in the past before you own birth, you change enough to guarantee the same sperm won't fertilise the eggs that create you and everyone you grew up knowing)
But basically Galvatron gets back to his time, Unicron's waiting for him and pissed off. Galvy gets a seeing to, fights Hot Rod, gets chucked out of Unicron, hits his time jump trigger and things go kerrrrrazy!

[Guest]

Well, there are a lot of "More or less"es when dealing with this much time travel, and alternate futures where the same people even exist (HIGHLY unlikely

Although, in this case, all the people are already present prior to any time travel, and therefore it makes it extremely likely they'd all be available for involvement.

given the butterfly effect - just by changing the flow of air around you through your presence in the past before you own birth, you change enough to guarantee the same sperm won't fertilise the eggs that create you and everyone you grew up knowing

Which is a rather extreme and unlikely result. The Butterfly Effect states that "Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behaviour of the system."

It doesn't mean that every little difference will result in a total divergence. There are those effects that have a possibility to have a knock-on effect, but equally there are those that attenuate as if they were identical.

[inflatable dalek]

What led to the events that made Unicron reach Cybertron sixteen years earlier than the movie? Is there a pivotal moment that caused the seperation in the timelines? (At the end of Target 2006 we are still on course for the movie future).

I'm always amazed this one causes so much confussion (even on the Moonbase 2 podcast a couple of weeks ago), Aspect of Evil: Galvatron has whole paragraphs from Rodimus Prime explaining that repairing the rip in history in Time Wars created a entirely new future.

So things happen differently from thereon in, giving us (though obviously Furman didn't know all of this at the time) early Unicron, at least one new and alive Galvatron (two, depending on wtf's supposed to be going on with him in Perchance to Dream), Klo Generation 2 and ultimately a new and darker early 21st Century where one of those Galvatron's has pretty much won it.

Rather neatly this also explains why some of the other Aspects stories don't gel with things that wound up happening on those dates (mostly the Scorponok one), Rodimus remembers the original version of the 90's rather than what we saw in the comic (though that is of course serendipity rather than something Furman planned).

I've often wondered why this seemingly straightforward bit of exposition from Rodimus gets ignored so much. I've veered from thinking perhaps fans are unhappy to regard the last firm chronological sign of our heroes is such a dark one, through to them perhaps regarding mad old Rodimus as a unreliable narrator, or even perhaps that it gets a little lost amongst all the confusing continuity between the B&W stuff and the American strips at the same time. Then I hit upon the most likely, Galvatron was a bit of a **** story and most people likely forgot about it after reading.

One thing about the time travel stories I do love is how the quantum realities theory; which was the big high concept at the heart of rebooting Star Trek this year where it was presented as a shocking new thing; is used at the end of Target:2006 in an entirely throwaway manner just to trick Galvatron into buggering of. Genius.

[Sunyavadin]

The variation of the position of a single atom *will* cause changes, in the real world. If I stand on one side of London for five seconds, while in the *short* term, the changes I cause to the movement of people in the city will have little impact, over time the small changes are the ones which become significant. One person moves past me in the street, that movement changes the movement, just by as little as a micrometre of everyone in the city, as a result someone on the other side of the city scratches their nose a second later than they would have. People who would have caught that out the corner of their eye do not, others do. The changes to input change action potentials in their brains. Some neurons fire. Others do not. One of those people decides to get a different type of coffee. This sets off a chain of events leading to...Well, anything. But certainly a future where they don't do all the things they would have before. And the same goes for everyone else.

But this is fiction. Where time travel is a LOT more forgiving. Where the impossibly low odds happen all the time, and where similar events can occur after more than the several weeks/months it would take for the changes to amplify globally and completely. In fiction the writer does whatever they feel like with time travel, because the writer is god. It's the ultimate expression of "A wizard did it".

[spiderfrommars]

I'm always amazed this one causes so much confussion (even on the Moonbase 2 podcast a couple of weeks ago), Aspect of Evil: Galvatron has whole paragraphs from Rodimus Prime explaining that repairing the rip in history in Time Wars created a entirely new future.

An entirely new future, not an entirely new past.

Unless you're saying repairing the rift in the present day changed events in post 1989, but Rodimus was talking about his own timeline. Using his dialogue to wave a magic wand over everything to explain it all... well... where's the fun in that?

[inflatable dalek]

An entirely new future, not an entirely new past.

Unless you're saying repairing the rift in the present day changed events in post 1989, but Rodimus was talking about his own timeline. Using his dialogue to wave a magic wand over everything to explain it all... well... where's the fun in that?

Nope, I'm saying that everything from the moment the rift heals in 1989 is different to the original history, Rodimus and company then returned to version of the 21st Century created from this starting point, which from their point of view is of course the aberration.

Remember, all the stuff that brings Unicron coming early comes after this (at least from a UK perspective, without checking dates I'm not sure when Furman's run started in America in relation) so it works rather neatly. True it could be argued it's a magic wand (though a fairly standard one when dealing with glimpses of the future, how many Trek episodes involving time travel involve a similar reset to cancel any future events seen?) but the speech in Galvatron makes it clear it was intentional and if that's what the stories telling us happened and it makes sense why fight it?

Now, Two Megatrons on the other hand...

[Sunyavadin]

Nope, I'm saying that everything from the moment the rift heals in 1989 is different to the original history, Rodimus and company then returned to version of the 21st Century created from this starting point, which from their point of view is of course the aberration.

THIS

Remember, all the stuff that brings Unicron coming early comes after this (at least from a UK perspective, without checking dates I'm not sure when Furman's run started in America in relation) so it works rather neatly. True it could be argued it's a magic wand (though a fairly standard one when dealing with glimpses of the future, how many Trek episodes involving time travel involve a similar reset to cancel any future events seen?) but the speech in Galvatron makes it clear it was intentional and if that's what the stories telling us happened and it makes sense why fight it?

Actually, I don't believe that in the Aspects timeline, Unicron *did* come early. I have other events in my timelines causing that.

Now, Two Megatrons on the other hand...

Nicely ties up a loose end for when Megs and Galvy meet, while it's the second time it's happened, NEITHER OF THEM REMEMBER IT. Otherwise we'd have a world of continuity errors to patch.

[spiderfrommars]

An entirely new future, not an entirely new past.

Unless you're saying repairing the rift in the present day changed events in post 1989, but Rodimus was talking about his own timeline. Using his dialogue to wave a magic wand over everything to explain it all... well... where's the fun in that?

Nope, I'm saying that everything from the moment the rift heals in 1989 is different to the original history, Rodimus and company then returned to version of the 21st Century created from this starting point, which from their point of view is of course the aberration.

I admit I like it, I like it a lot. But your problem is that the other Aspects of Evil stories do not marry up with this, specifically Shockwave (set in the Transformers: The Movie timeline) and Scorponok (set who-knows-where).

[Guest]

The variation of the position of a single atom *will* cause changes, in the real world. If I stand on one side of London for five seconds, while in the *short* term, the changes I cause to the movement of people in the city will have little impact, over time the small changes are the ones which become significant. One person moves past me in the street, that movement changes the movement, just by as little as a micrometre of everyone in the city, as a result someone on the other side of the city scratches their nose a second later than they would have. People who would have caught that out the corner of their eye do not, others do. The changes to input change action potentials in their brains. Some neurons fire. Others do not. One of those people decides to get a different type of coffee. This sets off a chain of events leading to...Well, anything. But certainly a future where they don't do all the things they would have before. And the same goes for everyone else.

I see. You've taken the "every time a butterfly flaps its wings..." literally, rather than the colourful poetic interpretation it was intended to be.

THAT is the fiction. Yes, the variation of the position of a single atom *will* cause changes, but unless the atom itself has a significance, then the effect of that variation will usually be absorbed by its surroundings, with a lessening in intensity as it gets further from the point of variation and from a macroscopic point of view no noticeable difference.

[Legion]

An entirely new future, not an entirely new past.

Unless you're saying repairing the rift in the present day changed events in post 1989, but Rodimus was talking about his own timeline. Using his dialogue to wave a magic wand over everything to explain it all... well... where's the fun in that?

Nope, I'm saying that everything from the moment the rift heals in 1989 is different to the original history, Rodimus and company then returned to version of the 21st Century created from this starting point, which from their point of view is of course the aberration.

I admit I like it, I like it a lot. But your problem is that the other Aspects of Evil stories do not marry up with this, specifically Shockwave (set in the Transformers: The Movie timeline) and Scorponok (set who-knows-where).

That's because Aspects:Galvatron show a timeline variant that is based on the fact that Galvatron never travelled back in time in "Fallen Angel" - therefore all previous 'future' stories are negated (no legacy, no space pirates no timewars:prelude etc). So therefore the 'past' for this timeline is infact the comics 'movie' timeline (which includes things like the other Aspects, Ark Duty). Which gives us the probability that this Galvatron is actually still Straxatron as things like T:2006, Prey etc will ahve happened.

[inflatable dalek]

I admit I like it, I like it a lot. But your problem is that the other Aspects of Evil stories do not marry up with this, specifically Shockwave (set in the Transformers: The Movie timeline) and Scorponok (set who-knows-where).

Ah, but don't forget, Rodimus is recounting those stories from memory. Because he's from the original version of the future the events he remembers are from that rather than from what we saw.

[Sunyavadin]

*******TL/DR bit coming up, anyone wanting to stay on topic skip to the end of this section, I got a bit carried away*******

THAT is the fiction. Yes, the variation of the position of a single atom *will* cause changes, but unless the atom itself has a significance, then the effect of that variation will usually be absorbed by its surroundings, with a lessening in intensity as it gets further from the point of variation and from a macroscopic point of view no noticeable difference.

Every single thing down to the smallest WIMP is significant in the larger scheme of things. One transcription error in my DNA, due to a single molecule with a molecular weight of 394 intercalating it, can be the difference between me not getting cancer and getting cancer. There's a reason we have legal limits on, for example, the number of CFU/ml permitted of bacteria in drinking water.
Whilst noticeable macroscopic effects will appear to lessen in the SHORT term, due to local conditions remaining roughly steady, in the long term, the microscopic effects of changes WILL have a more significant effect.
Once you get as far as people INTERACTING you 100% derail any future you came from, because every decision anyone ever makes is based upon the chain of events they have experienced over their life. So if your time travel is to twenty years ago in the middle of a desert, you're a bit more safe. It could take decades for the changes to escalate to the point where noticeable differences occur. But if you interact with a single person, then it's game over for your timeline within between six and 24 months. They'll make different decisions, and their decisions will affect others, and so on. for a large part a lot of the same events will occur, but in altered fashion. However, how many times have you crossed a road and almost been hit by a car? What if you DID end up crossing three seconds earlier? All because your friend inserted one less word in a sentence?
It's an exponential curve. One which can take a long time to get going, but once it does, it makes massive differences. A lot of people are more used to fictionalised versions of time travel where the only things taken into consideration are the visible ones. Generally plot points, Mcguffins, etc. But it's the things you don't observe which make all the difference. Two years of microbiology have recently served to further reinforce this fact to me. In fact I shouldn't even get started on the potential there, based on whatever the time traveller may be carrying. A lot of what they have may not have evolved yet in the time they arrive in, and they could cause either a pandemic, or a widespread immunity to something to develop far sooner than it should. The impact of either of these, well....

As I say, the best example is still the fact that just a difference of a few micrometres of movement by your father on the day you were conceived guarantees a completely different person to you being born, due to different sperm reaching the egg.

Anyway Rebis. I think a discussion of the mechanics of time travel is better suited to off topic, since this thread is close to derailing and I genuinely want input from people on the topic of the site. In fact, you've laready inspired me to put one idea in which I'll cover in a moment.

*******TL/DR bit over, we return you to your scheduled topic*******

AAAAANYWAY....

As Dalek pointed out:
Aspects clearly has Prime recounting his experiences from memory. HOWEVER, Aspects:Galvatron specifies another fact - that he is the Prime from the PREVIOUS timeline, who arrived in this timeline from the Time Wars. Meaning everything he talks about in Aspects that's set PRIOR to Aspects:Galvatron, are his memories of his OWN timeline.


Now then - I've had a thought based on the debate I seem to have reignited here about timelines...
I'm going to offer something else as well as just the timelines I've put together, and details of the best fit I've been able to put together for the continuity.
I'm going to offer the ability for people to submit THEIR chronologies, and explain how they work. Sound reasonable?

[BB Shockwave]

About the Butterfly Effect - seriously, who can know or prove this? Until we ever perform time travel, this is a moot argument. And if someone does, and actually changes the future - he will be the only one to know and prove this.

As for the Post-Movie Future, consider this:

-The future the T2006 bunch came from is obviously based on the cartoon 1986 movie's future. But at this point in the comics, there was nothing drastically different between the G1 cartoon and the Marvel US/UK universe. There is no reason to doubt that future could have come from that past! (Apart from considering that Sunstreaker and the Cons Omega killed would be reactivated at some time for them to be all present at the battle of Autobot City).

-However, Galvatron and Hot Rod's time travel did change the past. IMHO, they shattered the timeline to two threads - meaning one led to THEIR future, going on pretty much like the G1 season1-2 cartoon. The other became the Marvel continuity. Therefore, when Rodimus and Galvatron time-jumped again back in Fallen Angel and Fire on High, they have erroneusly landed in a different continuty then what was THEIR past. That's why any changes made in this past did not alter the 2006 future at that time (apart from Shockwave not being killed as he was in the 1986 movie, but since that was a deleted scene we can accept this). After all, Magnus from the Future isn't very much like the Magnus of the past. Also no Autobot from the future continuity makes any mention of Marvel-exclusive characters like the Wreckers, Xaaron, etc. Also consider that Rodimus only learned of Primus AFTER the battle against Unicron...

Of course Time Wars changed everything. Rodimus and co. arrived back to a totally different future. What Rodimus tells us in his flashbacks in Aspects of Evil, were events that happened in his old past (let's call it the "Cartoon Universe"). Both the Warmonger story, Shockwave's attack on Autobot city, Scorponok's capture can fit neatly into the 20 years that was between Season 2 of the cartoon and the movie. Even "Ark Duty" can be fitted here. I think this theory explains stuff rather well.

[spiderfrommars]

Ah, but don't forget, Rodimus is recounting those stories from memory. Because he's from the original version of the future the events he remembers are from that rather than from what we saw.

You got me.

I shall seriously consider converting to this phiolsophy.

New question: where was the Rodimus Prime of this alt. future? You know, the one that wasn't forced to travel back in time after Galvatron?

[Legion]

Ah, but don't forget, Rodimus is recounting those stories from memory. Because he's from the original version of the future the events he remembers are from that rather than from what we saw.

You got me.

I shall seriously consider converting to this phiolsophy.

New question: where was the Rodimus Prime of this alt. future? You know, the one that wasn't forced to travel back in time after Galvatron?

Good question! I'd kind of always just assumed that the time storm's attempt to patch the timeline back together was done with quite broad strokes and it would feverishly not allow two Rodimus' to exist, so when the autobots jumped back to the future, they became the only versions of those characters. A bit of a **** excuse, but i really don't think Furman had thought too much about that...

[Sunyavadin]

Or dead. That'd be a neat patch to history. Given that Galvatron had a far more established Decepticon powerbase in this future, since he never travelled back in time, it's entirely likely that he could have killed the counterparts of the Autobots who returned from the Time Wars.