Master Timeline

1. Content

This timeline integrates real historical events with the fictional history of the underground research facility and its aftermath, from 1936 to the campaign in 2021.

• H — Historical event (real-world history).
• F — Fictional event (in-universe history).

Exact dates for fictional events are provisional unless already established.

The dated events sit in the timeline block of the first subsection. Each one keeps the date as the sources write it, its type and its precision. The events that the sources leave undated, or date only relative to another event, follow in the second subsection, without invented precision.

1. Dated Events

2. Undated and Relative Events

These events have no date of their own in the sources, or only a date relative to another event. They are listed in their order in the story.

2.1 Before the Facility

• Undated, centuries before 1977 (F). Geological assessments suggested that the spacecraft might have crashed or become buried during the Age of Exploration, centuries before its discovery on June 23, 1977. See: Artifacts and Technology › The Spacecraft.
• Undated, ancient (F). The Skull Device / Skull Helmet is an ancient ritual object associated in the fiction with Maya civilization. It survived within the ceremonial tradition of an isolated Indigenous community in the Amazon, and its history predates the modern military installation. How the object traveled from Maya regions to that community remains an in-universe explanation TBD. See: Artifacts and Technology › Skull Helmet.
• Undated, the Victorian era (F). The mansion is an authentic Victorian-style residence originally owned by a noble family whose fortune was established by an industrialist patriarch during the Victorian era. The protagonists' father purchased the existing estate many years later, around 2007. See: Places › Mansion.

2.2 The Facility Years

• Undated, the early Cold War (F). Increasing espionage complexity contributes to the emergence of Super Directorate doctrine. See: Factions › Bilateral Strategic Continuity Directorate.
• Undated, before 1976 (F). According to assessments found within the base, Soviet researchers had explored mechanisms resembling memetic engineering before Dawkins introduced the term in 1976, drawing upon Soviet propaganda research and certain earlier German wartime practices. See: Phenomena › Memetics.
• Undated (F). Dr. Hatzinger organized and supervised the human experiments in D3. Dr. Valério eventually stabbed him to death in his office; the institution reported an accident, and Valério later died of poisoning. See: Characters › Dr. Hatzinger. See: Characters › Dr. Valério.
• After 1983 (F). Study of the spacecraft's antigravity system lets the fusion researchers deform local spacetime like a miniature black hole; the resulting field synchronizes the convergence of the lasers, and the reactor sustains its first stable fusion cycle with net power. The exact date remains to be defined. See: Artifacts and Technology › Fusion Reactor.
• Undated, authorizing the 1979 operation (F). A Portuguese-language authorization of the operation from several unnamed senior political leaders expresses moral anguish, invoking God's forgiveness. See: In-World Documents.
• Undated, after 1979 (F). Márcio Bravados withdraws from public life; his fate remains unknown. See: Characters › Márcio Bravados.
• After 1979, over many years (F). The Indigenous community has not forgotten the confiscation. Certain groups continue attempting to locate and recover the Skull Helmet, and attempts to penetrate the restricted region have occurred over many years. Military security records describe encounters, attempted infiltrations, and attacks against perimeter installations, and some incidents led to the strengthening of Brazilian military patrols and defensive positions. See: Factions › Indigenous Community.
• Following January 1996 (F). Following the alleged Varginha extraterrestrial incident in January 1996, a biological specimen associated with that event was secretly transferred to D6. See: Places › D6.

2.3 The Collapse and After

• After Feb 19, 1999 (F). Amanda is shut down as a security precaution, before she can establish how events unfold; she stays offline until Edmund reactivates her in 2021. See: Characters › Amanda.
• During the 1999 evacuation (F). Personnel deliberately disabled access to the deeper elevator systems. Consequently, the D1–D2 elevator remains operational, while the controls for descending from D2 toward D3 are inactive. See: Places › D2.
• After the 1999 catastrophe (F). The official cover story for the site's catastrophe referred to a radiation-related accident without revealing the facility's true nature. The site was sealed after attempts to recover or enter its deeper parts produced further casualties. See: Places › Military Base.
• After the facility's abandonment (F). None of the D3 species escaped containment while Schwarzwald was operating normally. Their uncontrolled proliferation began only after the facility was abandoned and its containment systems ceased to function. See: Enemies › Cancer Dog. See: Enemies › Roach Rat. See: Enemies › Flesh Nest.
• After 1999 (F). Friedrich lives in Argentina, hidden with the help of trusted contacts, while American and Brazilian intelligence search for him. See: Characters › Friedrich.
• Much later, undated (F). A false Facebook page, operated by an admirer impersonating Bravados, briefly generates rumors that he has returned. See: Characters › Márcio Bravados.

2.4 The Campaign After the Preparation Window

• October–November 2021, by November 14, 2021 at the latest (F). Chapter Three, A Flight to Nowhere, starts in October–November 2021, depending on the player's Chapter Two preparations. On the morning of departure, Edmund, Lorraine and Hamish leave the estate, fly in the family's private aircraft to São Paulo Catarina Executive International Airport in São Roque, and meet Friedrich's former associate, a retired Brazilian Army lieutenant colonel, at his rural property. See: Campaign › 3. A Flight To Nowhere.
• Before 2021 (H). São Paulo Catarina Executive International Airport began operating internationally. The story takes place in 2021, after the airport began operating internationally.
• Several days after the meeting (F). Edmund manages to contact the lieutenant colonel again: "A few days later, I was greatly relieved to hear that nothing had happened to the colonel." The family then flies from São Roque to Manaus and travels into remote territory and the rainforest, where the player regains control at a night camp.
• Nearly a week in the rainforest (F). The companions spend nearly a week searching for the installation; the exact passage of days may be adjusted to fit the final campaign chronology and geographical route. "Nearly a week had passed since we entered the forest."
• 2021, following the expedition (F). Chapter Four, Project Schwarzwald, begins when the expedition finally sees the research installation. Chapter Five, Mystery Base, begins immediately after Edmund gains access to the elevator from D1 to D2. Chapter Six, Gates of Hell, takes place in 2021. See: Campaign › 4. Project Schwarzwald. See: Campaign › 5. Mystery Base.
• Twenty-two years after 1999 (F). For twenty-two years, most of D3 has remained without conventional operational lighting. When Edmund restores the fusion reactor, a major part of the underground installation returns to operational life for the first time in twenty-two years. See: Campaign › 6. Gates Of Hell.
• After the reactor restart (F). In Chapter Seven, A Question of Trust, Edmund descends from D3 to D4, which is completely dark, and can reactivate Amanda, offline since 1999. See: Campaign › 7. A Question Of Trust.
• Later in the game (F). The creatures of Project Schwarzwald already inhabit D3, where the player first meets them in Chapter Six. Later in the game, a leak from the underground levels releases them into the surrounding rainforest; the exact event remains to be defined. Until then, the surface and the forest hold no creatures: their dangers are human and natural. See: Places › Surface.
• In a later chapter (F). Multiple hidden variables, including but not limited to the authority Edmund gave Amanda, affect the probability that she attempts to prevent him from leaving. See: Systems › Amanda's Authority And Trust.
• The end of the campaign (F). After the events of the Amazon expedition, the protagonists return to the mansion under radically different circumstances: the butler is dead, the father remains in stasis awaiting the final procedure, and the twins understand the truth behind their upbringing and mission. See: Campaign › Final Chapter.

3. Calendar Notes

The timeline block uses Writer's gregorian calendar profile. Each start and end value is a day ordinal: the number of days since 1 January of year 1 CE at 00:00, which is 0, with real Gregorian month lengths and leap years. The fraction is the time of day, in seconds out of 86,400. For example, 17 October 2021 at 00:00 is 738079.0.

The sources give no time of day, so the values follow these anchors:

• a day starts at 00:00 of that day;
• a day range runs from 00:00 of its first day to 23:59:59 of its last day;
• a month-only date is anchored at 00:00 on the first day of the month;
• a year-only or approximate date is anchored at 00:00 on 1 January of its year;
• a decade or a range of years runs from 1 January of its first year to 23:59:59 on 31 December of its last year.

An anchor only places the event on the axis; it does not date it more precisely than the sources do. Each event's description begins with the date as the sources write it, its type and its precision.

The block has four tracks: Historical (H), Fictional (F), the six sections into which the master timeline divides the facility's history, and the five phases of the surface complex's historical development.

Spans the sources count:

• The game opens twenty-two years after the 1999 catastrophe.
• The fusion researcher ordered to shut down the reactor in 1999 counts twenty-three years of his life on it, which places fusion research under way in 1976.
• D2 shows more than twenty years of abandonment, and D3 more than two decades.
• The twins are about six or seven when Friedrich enters stasis around 2010, twelve in 2015, seventeen on October 16, 2021, and eighteen on October 17, 2021.

D4's geopolitical prediction archive holds projections reaching as far as the year 2552. It is a forecast horizon, not an event, so the timeline has no entry for it. See: Places › D4.