Gears-Saga Timeline Overlap

Poring over some stuff to make my XG fic run a little more smoothly, I've found something extremely interesting on this page:
http://www.neoseeker.com/xenogears/faqs/46268-perfect-works.html

I've outlined some of the more juicy tidbits here. Basically, the year the Eldridge Disaster occurs is denoted in the same way that the year Xenosaga starts is denoted, T.C. (Transcend Christ) 4767. I've double-checked with my copy of the XSI ODM, and all relevant character birthdates check out to match. Xenosaga and Xenogears ended up very different games, but this little stem seems to be the way they both start out, and it makes my little fangirl heart go doki doki.

Spoiler:

Timeline transitioning from A.D. to T.C.

Spoiler:

The years Pied Piper occurs in in XS are skipped, but the Immigrant Fleet sure is there, and it sure is almost 4800 years old and still crazy by the time XSI hits.

More timeline, from 24 years prior to the TC year Xenosaga begins, to 15 years prior:

Spoiler:

4753 is the year of the Miltian Conflict in Saga. HMM. The XG Perfectworks skips a chunk of years, which I guess were filled in when Saga happened because it was a blank space to play with. MAM seems to have been rediscovered the same year Allen Ridgely is born. MAM in this case appears to be very similar to the Marienkind Zohar Emulator, which is recovered in XSI.

Fast forward to Saga's "two years ago," where the DS game places the disappearance of Ariadne:

Spoiler:

This is where the discrepancy between the original XSI and XSI & II DS gets annoying. Monolith did a really good job keeping the timeline with Gears matchy-matchy until they change the date of Ariadne's demise from 4765 to 4767 for the original XSI on the PS2. I'm very interested in seeing the DS game translated, because I'm sure Commander Cherenkov's high-strungedness plays out very differently. Although, I believe in XSI, 4765 is the year of the KOS-MOS Archetype Incident, so there's that, too. Does anyone know if they changed the date for that in the DS game as well?

Here's the last bit of the timeline before Gears gets into Gears-only territory:

Spoiler:

Although it's spelled differently, you can definitely recognize Michtam in that second block of info. Michtam/Abraxas in Xenosaga and the Miktam in Gears seem to have tragedy take place on them in different eras and serve to be different points of story. The tragedy with the Gnosis on Michtam occurred in 4747, which has no significant assignment in the Gears timeline.

I have no idea if a thread resembling this on any of the older forums that have come and gone exists, buuuut now I've made this one (WITH MY OWN HANDS), so...uh, ain't this neat? I think it's neat...

Thanks for posting, Kat. There were definitely some timeline discussions on the old forums, especially in terms of the sagas possibly existing in one continuity.

Regarding the DS - I'm not entirely sure if the DS actually did the 2 year difference anymore - there was a discussion on Tensei about the conflicting timeline and it's possible the 2 year difference was a mistake written in one area, but not in another - I'm not sure.

In any case, the KOS-MOS incident date was never changed.

Oh my gosh that's so cool. *w*  It makes me wonder how the stories would have fit together if Xenosaga had gone as initially planned.

stitchedmoon wrote:Oh my gosh that's so cool. *w*  It makes me wonder how the stories would have fit together if Xenosaga had gone as initially planned.

You mean... if Xenosaga didn't get screwed by Namco or if Xenogears Episode 1 wasn't refused by Squaresoft, leading Takahashi and his team to leave and create Monolith Soft ?

I don't think Xenosaga would have fit Xenogears's timeline more if Namco hadn't screwed Monolith over (or if Monolith had been better prepared as a new gaming company). Xenosaga is what it is because Takahashi left Squaresoft and lost the rights to his Xenogears saga. Without the rights, he was forced to deviate from his original plans for Xenogears 1 anyway. The setting (and some year events that Katimus posted) and the idea for a few characters were kept (Shion, Ziggy and MOMO were supposed to be Xenogears 1 characters, I think). And some naming were re-used as well (which is a bit weird I guess... they could re-use Zohar and a little boy named Abel *who looks identical to little Abel in Xenogears* without getting sued by Square... maybe names like Zohar are considered public domain *plus, the Zohar in Xenosaga had a slightly different design*).

I think we could more or less compare Xenosaga to animes like the first Full Metal Alchemist. Those animes that are adaptations of ongoing/unfinished mangas and are forced to deviate from the source material because of this. Just replace "ongoing/unfinished manga" with "losing the rights to an unfinished saga". Except that Xenosaga didn't just deviate from the original source. It re-used and mixed stuff from the existing Xenogears game as well (Young Master ---> Little Master... one example among too many to list).

I wanted to believe in the Xenogears/Xenosaga connection, back in the days. Especially when I finished Xenosaga 3. Unfortunately, the connection isn't really possible... ever since Xenosaga 1 was made (even Takahashi tried to discourage the notion that Xenosaga was a real prequel when the first game was released) but people still hoped at the time (which was the cause for some getting disappointed in Xenosaga).

Well, the whole idea of there being multiple possible timelines in XS though kinda opens the door towards the Gears connection. Soraya Saga supposedly once mentioned that an idea they had was to have Durandal dock with Elridge or something.

The thing about the Eldridge is that it appears to be the same kind of class of ship as the Durandal, so I believe such a docking is very possible.  The mass of the Eldridge as described in PW is waaaaaaay bigger than my perception of the Durandal, though.

http://xeno-underground.net/xg_pw/PW009.jpg

And yeah, XS broke off from XG and became its very own thing.  That's absolutely not in dispute here.  Monolith made it pretty clear of the official split by the time XS2 came out (which really disappointed me at the time, but by that time I cared enough about the series to see the rest through).  

Zohar's actually an IRL term.  It's the name for a very important collection of books in Kabbalah, which is kind of a discourse about Judaism and I think those that follow it consider it a supplement to the Torah. The word Zohar itself means "splendor" or "radiance" according to Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zohar

I think the whole Abel thing came down to the fact that I don't think anyone who mattered at Squaresoft cared enough to get that reference?  Abel himself in Xenogears Episode I was touched on very very briefly in one anime cutscene in Disc 1 and the one time we see the Gazel Ministry as human where Cain lazers Elly.  Not a whole lot of people remember that.  I mean, well, we do, but.  Hehe.  I don't think they thought it was enough to sue over. Most people who hadn't played Gears all the way through may have just thought that the kid was designed to look like Fei, which is also correct.


I'm just kinda thinking of ways I can kinda pepper my Xenogears fic with Saga stuff and I'm kinda basking in the glow of how this matches up for now.  A Xenogears Episode I would be vastly different to the Xenosaga I we got, I'm quite sure.  I'm actually really interested in both.  :3

Personally, I'm a bit more interested in how realian folk are integrated in Xenosaga's society.

There is the mention of a bill of equal rights being finally pushed through in Federation's government after the Miltian conflict, but I kind of don't see any noticeable difference during the games' proper - what, fifteen years later after the fact? Realians are still purpose-made for the their jobs though, phenotype, implants and all, though (100-series being a prime example), supposedly without even having a right to their own face. Central nervous system override is still there as well.

And, while I doubt that all people in the Migrant Fleet are as radically religiously extremist as some of Ormus' command, I seriously doubt no one over there has raised some stink over realians not having souls or somesuch nonsense to justify discrimination.

I do not mean to imply that I find what you list here uninteresting, but it has dates and numbers in it and my head just refuses to work with that right now, so I'd need some time see if there is anything I can comment on.

(Also, I kind of have been binging some Megaman playthroughs on youtube recently, and there are some things after a certain point in the MMX series that the whole mess becomes crossoverable with Xenosaga. And my thoughts kind of default into that direction. So, yeah...)

Yeah, no worries, Yikari. Xenosaga's social worldbuilding far outclassed Gears' to the point of hyperbole. I think they had a lot more room to do that with a much more Sci-Fi setting. Gears is also Sci-Fi, but it's very low tech compared to Saga.