*THE TIMELINE*

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:

• An issue of the Zepheniah Mann and Sons Co. “Quarterly Concern” is released. Strangely, there are two different versions of the cover: one credited to Zephaniah Mann alone, and one credited to both Zepheniah and his brother Silas. @
• It is unlikely one cover is a retcon of another, as there are a few other differences that can be seen (such as a diagram of a Zeppelin appearing on one, but not on the other). @
• My theory is that at some point, Valve had a plotline based around Silas planned, in which they would reveal he was cut off from the company and the family for some reason. Then MVM happened and in typical Valve fashion they forgor *skull emoji*. @
• There are some papers seen in the fireplace Silas stands next to in the portrait: maybe these are the remains of the “original” quarterly concern. @



Close Ups of the Two Versions



• (Zepheniah) Mann (and Sons) Co. employs child labourers at this time. At least they boast the “LOWEST MORTALITY RATES of any competing smelting plant”. And they offer life insurance! Divisions of Mann Co at this time include: @
  • Iron Smelting
  • Horse Breaking
  • Fuse Lighting
  • Steel Hefting
  • Poison (prompt disposal of)
  • Cogwheel Blocking (fixing of with small hands)
  • Something to do with Coal

1850:

• Redmond and Blutarch Mann convince their father to spend his entire fortune on “gravel pits” in America, and move over there from Cambridgeshire in England. The journey over causes Zepheniah to become very ill. @*
• When they reach America, Zepheniah realises the gravel pits are worthless: they are only filled with “fools gravel” (sand). Redmond and Blutarch are too stupid to realise this. Zepheniah only contracts more diseases. @*
• The famous Mann family portrait is painted, and an unknown somebody is torn out of the middle. @
• The most common theory is that it is an earlier design/iteration of Grey Mann, but it could also be one of the Darlings, a young Radigan Conagher, Merasmus (it’s not impossible!) or the eldritch Abraham Lincoln god from the 4chan leaks.
• Post comic 7, the unknown somebody may have been retconned out, as we can't see any details peeking out from behind Solly's thumb. What a world. @



The Portrait



• Zepheniah Mann writes his will on his own skin (he gets impetigo): @
• He vows to come back as a ghost and haunt the world until he is done being mad at both it and his sons, and also to haunt anyone who uses a weapon near his grave (both of which he succeeds in doing, going by Scream Fortress 1 and 7). @*
• He leaves “the rest and residue of my estate- including all deeds, accounts, debts public and private- my tobacco plantation- and what remains of the fortune my addle-pated sons have squandered” to his maidservant, "Elizabeth", (Admin). He requests that she find some gravel and place it into a pit in his honour. @*
• Further down in his will, he leaves Elizabeth the “miracle gravel cache” he and Barnubas discovered in Australia, and tells her to keep it secret from Grey who wants to blackmail him for it. @*
• He leaves his company “Mann & Sons Munitions Concern” to his faithful aide and tracker, Barnabus Hale, who “procured the poppy flowers required for the medicines that gave me succour from the pains of my many warring ailments”.@*
• He leaves the worthless land to his sons, commanding them to split it between themselves equally. “You have wasted your lives bickering over nothing, and so I leave you dimwits something of consequence over which to feud”. @*

*scroll down and click "transcript" for sources.

• Literally the second Zepheniah finishes writing his will, Admin brags to him that thanks to her efforts, his sons will never cease their bickering and neither will rise above the other. @
• When Zepheniah asks her about her motives, she whispers the answer in his ear and he promptly dies. @
• After the will is read, Blutarch and Redmond (both 28 at the time) immediately send mercenaries to take all of the land by force, beginning the gravel wars and the hundred year stalemate. @
• Eventually, RED and BLU, their respective companies, are both bought out by TF industries and the war is controlled by Admin. @
• The now Hale-run Mann Co sets up in the Badlands, and begins selling to the locals. @

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”. He’s doing so well he’s advertising in an American newspaper. @

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.@

• “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)

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