*THE TIMELINE*
(Press the "@"s for sources!)
The Beginning
Roughly -4027:
- Merasmus is born, or created. @
- Not long after, God creates the universe. @
Caveman Times:
- Cavemen arrowshot the dinosaurs to death. @
Before Recorded Time:
- “The Razorback is a beautiful hand-carved tribal shield, built using indigenous techniques passed from father to son since before recorded time.” @
- Sniper would go on to have a car battery stuck to his. @
Ancient Sumerian Times:
- The Ancient Sumerians invent the first carnival for evil (literally everything they do is for evil). @
- They have spinning sacrificial altars on which they perform ritual sacrifices to Bonzo the evil circus god. Every evil carnival made after that was with the intent of appeasing Bonzo. @
“Thousands of Years Ago”:
- Monks invent the art of hitting people with broken bottles. @
Ancient China:
- Sun Tzu writes “The Art of War”, but doesn’t write a book about punching out people’s rib cages (to Soldier’s dismay). @
- There’s a lot of other things he may or may not do, including being the inspiration for the word “zoo”. @
“Centuries Ago”:
- Jarate is invented and then hidden by masters of the art for centuries. @
- Despite this, Saxton Hale claims to have invented it. I propose he did CULTURAL APPROPRIATION, and that is why Sniper doesn’t like him. @
- The great riddle that is the concept of shields is first thought up by Scotsmen. @
The 7th Century:
- Monks first develop the method used to make the silk for Spy’s overpriced Louis Crabbemarche suit jackets. @
The 10th Century:
- Merasmus sends the mercs to this time period (Degroot’s Keep!) because Soldier pissed him off. @
- However, there’s a lot of evidence suggesting he lied and only teleported them to a theme park. @
- (A theme park owned by the Degroots? Could be one of Demo's three jobs.) @
Late 1600s/Early 1700s:
- Issac Newton kills his wife, and distracts the police by discovering gravity. @
- (Odd thing to happen, as in our universe he never married and was probably gay.) @
- “[Newton] didn't just invent motion and gravity—when the crappy math of his day wasn't getting the job done, he took an afternoon off and invented calculus like a champ. But then instead of telling anybody he invented calculus, he hung out in his pajamas making immortality potions and looking for the lost city of Atlantis, and somebody else invented calculus first” @
Late 1700s (18th Century):
- George Washington and Shakespearicles, the strongest writer to ever live, invent America. @
- According to historians, Washington's greatest regret is not being permanently invisible. @
- In the same year he invents America, Shakespearicles also invents the two-storey building, the stage play, and the rocket launcher. @
- One of the stage plays written by Shakespearicles is a version of Macbeth where the titular character is from the future, has heat vision and fights Hercules. @
- Although Shakespearicles is able to bench press 700 british pounds, he does not think to invent stairs, so people have to rocket jump to the second storey until 1921. @
The Legend Himself
The American Revolutionary War:
- “In wartime, hats were a useful way of conferring rank, and ensuring that casualties were confined to the lower classes.” @
- This stigma around hatless people persists after America wins its freedom: “During peacetime, hats have been instrumental for men to let the non-hatted know just who is wearing the hat around here.” @
1775:
- During the Battle of Bunker Hill, William Prescott, “a general renowned for only shooting enemy combatants who were poor”, famously commands: “Don't fire till you see the tops of their heads”. @
- This is, of course, because of the hat thing. @
1777:
- 300 men die defending Fort Stanwix from the british. If not for them, Americans would be speaking British English. @
- ...according to Soldier, anyway. @
1788:
- A man named Nicolas Crowder arrives in a recently colonised Australia, and decides to conquer the South Pole instead. @
- He remains in the South Pole, only venturing out on the 18th of December every year to kidnap naughty children to make presents for him. He collects everything the following 17th of December, and sells any duplicates cheaply online. @
- (Unknown if he’s been selling the gifts online since 1788, or if he only began doing that when the internet was invented in the 1900s.) @
- One Australian Christmas night, three mobsters who were owed money by Ol’ Nick went after him. They followed a bright star, and found Ol’ Nick forcing a bunch of small children to make guns. “And so began the legendary shootout…” @
- They say on AC Eve Night, you can see the light on that Sweatshop Smoke Stack, “shining like a beacon to low flying aircraft and the mafia.” @
1800s/19th Century
Early 1800s:
A young Admin is shown a block of Australium, and apparently she "craved" it at this point too. Yet another lore facet probably killed by the Retcon. @
Her parents die around this time as well, most likely due to some forgotten Zepheniah related reason. @
1812:
- Charles Dickens is born. He goes on to write many books and plays, including:
- A play about KINDLY COMMUNITY MAP MAKER BOB CRATCHIT and BILLIONAIRE HAT MAGNATE SCROOGE @
- “Feel-good surf classic” Super Good Times. He writes this one in a beach cabana. It opens with: "It was the best of times. It was the best of times." @
- The Tale of Two Cities, and its sequel, Bleak House (a printing error misspelt the book's original title: Good Times Beach House). @
- A version of “A Christmas Carol”, the final scene of which involved Tiny Tim “breaking out of Scrooge's cryogenic storage and unleashing a psychic explosion” and “blasting Ebenezer Scrooge's loanhouse/cryofreeze facility to splinters with his psychokinetic onslaught” @
1814:
- An editorial cartoon about classism and hats is published in Gentle Manne’s Monthly. This magazine is most likely run by Mann Co. @
- It seems common for the elites to make peasants fight for their entertainment, and bet hats on who will win, at this point in time. @
1822
- The GREAT EAGLE SCOURGE of 1822 happens. @
2nd September 1822:
- The Mann triplets are born in Mann Manor in “Manne-Upon-Thames”, London, to Bette Mann neé Darling and Zepheniah Mann. @
- Zepheniah discusses business with Barnabus: “If the sites of infestation are indeed multiplying, so is their need for munitions, munitions we can-”. What exactly he is talking about is unclear, but it is likely either Australium or eagle related. @
- Bette Mann neé Darling dies in childbirth, and Zepheniah doesn't even care. A heavy contrast to Barnaubus, who is driven to tears. @
- Grey Mann is born able to talk from listening to his mother in the womb. However, Zepheniah thinks he is too physically weak to have as a son, and attempts to smother him. Before he can, Grey is absconded by an eagle (victim of The Scourge). @
- Not long after (anywhere between a few months and a few years), Grey kills his eagle mother and siblings and crawls back to civilization. @
Late 1822:
- The Administrator shows up at Mann Manor and is given a job as a governess to the infant Mann brothers. Zepheniah wants one brother to eventually kill the other, as is Mann family tradition. @
- She proceeds to spend their entire childhood pitting them against each other, so that neither would ever stop bickering long enough to kill the other. All part of her long-term plan to get revenge on Zepheniah for unknown (although possibly dead-parents-related) reasons. @
- Strangely, Zepheniah claims to Admin that he is his father's “only son”. @
- This was clearly the world’s laziest attempt at a retcon (Soldier later gets his grubby hands on a copy of the original will portrait, and I shit you not Silas is still in it) so I'm not even going to properly acknowledge it. Rip to my king, the Horseless Headless Horsemann. He could be a distant cousin but I really doubt it what with the whole "there can only be one" Mann family sigma grindset. Someone's bound to have had his parents killed before he could even be concieved. @
1823:
- Admin starts her search for Australium. She goes on to establish TF Industries, as well as thousands of shell companies. @
1840s:
- A man named Claude Huggins founds the town of Teufort after a bear kills everyone in his party except him. He names it “Hugginsville”. @
1847:
- Claude Huggins is “forced” to rename Hugginsville to “Two Farts” by some teenagers. Due to him being too scared to change it back fully, the town becomes Teufort. @
Late 1840s:
1850:
1850s:
- Australia begins outpacing the rest of the world with their advanced technology. Over the next 50 years, they invent cloaking and teleportation, and develop “the entire spectrum of moustache sciences”. @
- It can be assumed they did this either in secret, due to them being notoriously secretive about Australium, or before 1865 (see 15th April 1865). Or a combination of both.
Mid to Late 1800s:
- For unknown reasons, Silas Mann dies. He goes on to become the Horseless Headless Horsemann. @
- It is possible this transformation has something to do with Merasmus, as he refers to the Horsemann as an “old friend” of his in Scream Fortress 7. @
1857:
- Abraham Lincoln invents stairs. @
- Despite not faking his death for another near decade, he is not able to “grasp the full import of his own invention” before then.@
21st August 1861:
- Barnabus Hale buys a cave full of “fool’s gravel” from the Mann brothers. Presumably it is full of coal, as it is located in Coaltown. @
- Merasmus lives in Scotland, and sells “hat tonic”. @
1862:
- “Massive Depots of Gold” are found in “Australia's most hated enemy, hills”. This is odd as hills haven’t been discovered yet. @
5th August 1862:
- Australia nervously assures the world that there is no gold. Clearly, they have discovered a large stock of Australium instead, and are keeping quiet about it.
- The rest of the world decide to look for gold in Canada instead.
1865:
- “I say this to you with the unvarnished factualism of plain talk: I love Arena Mode” (Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address)
- At another point, he said: “America’s pipelines are a stirring beacon of hope. Let no man befoul their majesty with calumny or bombs”
1865:
- Abraham Lincoln attempts to fake his death by “rocket jumping up the world’s first staircase in his laboratory at Ford's Theatre”. This works, but he is also nearly shot in an assassination attempt by John “Tower of Hats” Booth.
- Still, he avoids the bullet, is flung into a teleporter and ends up in the desert. Presumably he does this so he can focus full time on being a mercenary.@
The teleporter thing isn't Explicitly canon, but this diagram has me pretty damn convinced.
- “Horrified by this tragedy, mankind agreed never to invent anything again, turning its many scientists and scholars to that most noble endeavour, astrology.
- People are forced to continue rocket jumping to the second floor for the next 100 years or so.
- John “Tower of Hats” Wilkes Booth takes advantage of the situation and steals Lincoln's iconic hat, which didn't travel through the teleporter.
- A few days later, Booth, presumed by society to have killed Lincoln, is hunted down and sat on by Bilious Hale while several other men shoot at and kill him. Hale gets to keep the hat, and it is later displayed in the Coaltown museum.
Late 1860s:
- The telephone is invented, and the first 6 people to own one are:
- The then president (Rutherford Hayes, presumably)
- Bilious Hale
- Redmond
- Blutarch
- Alexander Graham Bell
- "Her" (Admin)
1869:
- A commemorative Abraham Lincoln coin is made.
1872:
- Bilious Hale owns Mann Co at this point, and opens up a coal weapons factory in Coaltown.
- He mines by “punching the coal out”, while his hapless employees follow with bags to collect it.
1880s:
- The Administrator slowly hunts for Australium, collecting it “ounce by ounce”
1890:
- Radigan Conagher, an inventor (despite mankind having sworn off science), is hired by Blutarch Mann to make him live forever so he can win the war.
- Radigan is bribed by Admin to do the same for Redmond Mann, in exchange for 100 pounds of Australium. She claims that is her entire stock (liar).
- At this time, every Australian is ridiculously buff and even the women have moustaches. They also choose their king based on who can beat a kangaroo in a boxing match.
- Radigan has a small business called Conagher’s Tools and Munitions, and blueprints for a steam powered sentry. It is likely this company ends up expanding into Frontier Engineering several years down the line.
1894:
- Radigan builds the immortality machines for Blutarch (completed 17th July) and Redmond (completed 3rd August). Both machines are called “Mark 1”.
- He also builds a third machine (Mark 2?), but it is unknown who for or even what year. All we know it was completed on a 14th of April.
- The third machine most likely went to The Administrator, as she mentions that Engie’s family have helped her out in the past.
- It could even be the machine she used to keep Zepheniah’s empty husk of a corpse “alive”.
- (Grey almost definitely built his own machine, as we know he is a genius inventor himself.)
25 January 1895:
- Hills are discovered, “confounding men of australian science”
6th March 1895:
- The King of Australia announces war on hills and decides that they can be studied “after they are dead”.
5th April 1896:
- The war is won, as hills don't (can't) fight back
1890s/Early 1900s:
- Radigan goes hunting for more Australium for his inventions, and makes a map of the caches he finds.
- Radigan’s overexposure to Australium causes him to, for lack of better words, “become Australian”: he drinks more alcohol, becomes extremely muscular, stops wearing shirts, and even grows Texas shaped chest hair.
- The Australium also makes him lose his mind a bit, as he eventually replaces his left hand with the first version of The Gunslinger.
Pre-Canon (Early 1900s)
1900:
- Back in the 1800s, Australia had plans to colonise space by this point. It is unlikely that went ahead.
- The American monkeynaut program was launched some time before this, and was eventually bought out by famously Australian company Mann Co. Ironic.
January 23rd 1901:
- Mann Co invents robots that will “only be used for violence”. Robin is the most popular girls’ name in Australia.
- Robin is the most popular girls’ name in Australia.
- Contender for least funny joke in all of TF2 canon if I'm being honest. Other than the "no one knows team fortress" retcon.
1901:
- Newell and Son (unknown whether or not it is a division of TF Industries) release a “turnless” board game called “Teams and Fortresses 2”.
- The game is most likely inspired by the Gravel Wars Mercs of this time. Delivery is via carrier pigeon, until…
Early 1900s:
- …Newell and Sons release their new STEAM system, where they connect pipes between their “home in Kirkland, WA” and the homes of every “STEAM subscriber”. Updates are transported via compressed steam being pumped through the pipes at speeds up to 200mph. Also, 5 hats are released for the TaF2 figurines.
- Computers exist, and are coal powered
- Famous painter Kicasso has his “hunted in the jungle” period
- Radigan dies, and is buried with the blueprints for all his inventions, as well as his Australium cache map. Not long after, Blutarch steals these blueprints from the coffin, but is unable to decipher them.
13th June, 1907:
- Mann Co is voted the safest workplace in the Badlands, due to the lack of mercenary warfare on the premises. A reporter is “sent to RED and BLU for comment” and is “killed in crossfire by mercenaries”
- Captain Dan’s Soup (Soldier’s favourite brand) is popular enough to be advertised on the front of a newspaper.
Late 1910s:
- Medic/Herbert Ludwig (possibly not real name, as implied by the Devil) is born in a town called Rottenburg, in Stuttgart, Germany in “an era when the Hippocratic oath had been downgraded to an optional Hippocratic suggestion”. Despite that, for a while he thinks “doing no harm” is a good idea.
- Rottenburg is famous for its “centuries-old traditions of 1) chasing the next in the resident lineage of mad doctors out of town with torches and pitchforks whenever they swapped out too many super-charged baboon hearts, and 2) never having been attacked by an army of robots”.
- That first “tradition” implies Medic has some relation to the “Humboldts”, who own a pharmacy seen in the background of a promotional MvM image. However, this has yet to be confirmed or denied.
- Heavy/Mikhail is born somewhere in Russia.
- All we know of his early childhood are dubiously canonical anecdotes mentioned in Poker Night, such as learning to box in school, and burying a sparrow he witnessed another boy kill.
- Spy is born. Probably in France, but he could be faking his accent. Out of all the mercs, besides Pyro (who I’m not even going to guess the birth year for), we know the least about his backstory and upbringing.
- Spy canonically speaks French, Spanish and Catalan (according to his action figure), suggesting he grew up in a region where those languages are/were spoken.
13th August, 1915:
- “Mining millionaire [Bilious] punches way out of mine shaft collapse”. 14 people die in this incident both from the cave-in and “punch related injuries”.
24th January, 1916:
- “Mann Co wins bid; Now sole munitions supplier to RED, BLU, warring mercenaries”. The citizens of Badlands are both overjoyed and terrified at this.
- “Guns will help us end the war with haste”, promises Redmond Mann. Hahahaha.
Early 1920s:
- Soldier/Jane Doe is born somewhere in the American midwest. We know literally nothing else about his childhood, but a common theory is that his obsession with the military stems from having a relative who fought in WW1.
1921:
- “Hot headed pisces” Franklin D Roosevelt loses his legs rocket jumping, and comes across Lincoln's staircase notes. Thus, the “modern staircase” is created, and presumably most of mankind begins to trust in science again.
- “Eager to re-ignite the nation’s waning interest in coal, Bilious Hale introduced this steam-powered hat [prototype] in 1921 at the Paris World Fashion Expo. It required 50 pounds of coal per day to run.”
13th March, 1922:
- “Mann Co stops production on coal-powered weapons”, presumably because Bilious’s coal hat scheme failed miserably.
- Bilious Hale shuts down the coal mine and coal weapon factory. The factory is almost immediately turned into a museum.
- New Mann Co factories are to open soon after this, selling hats (the “next big industry boom”)
- Interestingly enough, the triplets turn 100 this year.
Late 1920s:
- Demoman/Tavish Finnegan Degroot is born in Ullapool, Scotland, and is abandoned by his parents, as part of “a long-standing, cruel, and wholly unnecessary tradition among the Highland Demolition Men”.
- Engineer/Dell Conagher is born in Bee Cave, Texas. The TFC Engineer, Fred, is his father, and Radigan Conagher is his grandfather. We don’t know anything about his childhood, but he goes on to spend “ten years as a roughneck in the west Texas oilfields”, and get 11 “hard science” PhDs.
- Although Engie implies he knew Radigan personally in Loose Cannon, he’s talking out of his ass. The man died “60 years” before he was employed under BLU, AKA a couple of decades before Engie was born.
1930:
- The mercs we play as in Team Fortress Classic work for the Mann brothers at this time. It is unknown how long their contracts lasted, especially when we take into account the many other mercenary groups revealed at the end of comic 6/beginning of comic 7.
Early 1930s:
:
:
Actual TF2 (Game and Comics)
https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=4608#:~:text=as%20we%20slaved%20away%20on%20tf2%20back%20in%20'63
