Oni2:Slaves of War/Timeline

2000: BioCrisis begins.

          

Rationale

I couldn't ascertain anything from Oni's story as to when this is supposed to have happened, but if we're going to give the Wilderness time to spread and become a menace, we need to push it back before 2014, if that's when Dr. Hasegawa and Jamie venture into a quarantined area. Choosing "2000 AD" is also a bit of an homage to Neon Genesis Evangelion and its Second Impact.

Quite possibly no one even would have noticed when the BioCrisis began, if it started small, "from a seed", as it were. If we're just dealing with a gradual build-up of industrial pollution, then arguably there shouldn't be a start date at all. My theory is that the BioCrisis was caused by contamination from the rapid growth of Daodan-enhanced life. If that's correct, so that there is a specific start date, it seems unlikely that Bungie planned it to be before 1999, when Oni was slated to come out. It's pretty rare for a science-fiction writer to release a book in, say, 2011 where he describes something momentous happening in 2005 that isn't in our history books.

Ironically, we're now in that very boat with an Oni 2 story; we need to posit things such as the BioCrisis and Freedom Riots happening before the time when Oni 2 comes out (granted, Oni 2 is an "if", not a "when"). Now, if freedom riots actually do happen in 2012, this is incredibly convenient for our purposes, and we might be tempted to argue that the BioCrisis has begun too, and no one has noticed yet... but what about this "phase technology" that was deployed for crowd suppression in those Riots, and which I blame the BioCrisis on?

One option is to just shrug and say that Oni takes place in an alternate universe where the point of divergence is some time in the '90s or '00s, when a scientist in Oni's world develops phase technology (here, I guess he gets hit by a bus). The technology starts the BioCrisis, and the resulting pollution causes governments to begin acting more authoritatively (see manual quote below for a mention of the "environmental problems" being used as a rationalization for the WCG), which leads to the Riots. At least, that's my working premise at this early point.

2009: Muro is born.

          

Rationale

I have nothing to go on here except the assumption that Muro is older than Konoko (based on "blam! love, little sister") and that he's probably more than a tiny bit older, considering he has managed to take control of the Syndicate and is a more advanced Daodan host.

2012: Freedom Riots.

          

Rationale

I used to think this was a silly thing to place in our near future, back when I first read Oni's manual -- as if people would be rioting for freedom around the world! Um, hmm...

2013 (before November): Mai is born.

          

Rationale

Using this date allows Mai to be 19, a reasonably believable age, by 2032, and also gives Jamie time to take part in the Freedom Riots before having another kid and then dying.

2014: Jamie dies in the Wilderness. Daodan project starts.

          

Rationale

Has to take place after Mai's birth, and yet we don't have much time after her birth to work with because Mai was separated from her dad at age 3, and the Daodan project initiated by Jamie's death was already well along by then. Apparently the Hasegawas were too intent on investigating the Wilderness Reserves to let having a baby back home slow them down.

2016: Syndicate raids Hasegawa'a Lab. Mai and Dr. Kerr are taken in by TCTF.

          

Rationale

The manual tells us that Konoko was orphaned at age 3, so based on my 2013 birth date, we arrive at 2016 or 2017.

2018: Muro is implanted with the Daodan.

          

Rationale

I just didn't want Muro to also be seven when implanted, that would be trite. But it needs to happen before Mai is implanted, so Griffin's orders can be a reaction to rumors from intelligence on the Syndicate.

2020: Konoko is implanted with the Daodan. Shinatama is produced using Konoko's brain engrams.

          

Rationale

Aren't we told that Konoko was seven when implanted with the Daodan? Now I can't find the source for that....

2026: Muro takes control of Syndicate.

          

Rationale

The manual says that Muro came to power "less than ten years ago". Muro's only 17 at this point in time, so I can't strain credulity even further by setting it earlier than this.

2032: Oni happens. Konoko is 19, Muro is 23.

          

Rationale

It's been pointed out that Oni may not actually take place in 2032 based on the following excerpt from the manual:

“	On January 12th, 2032 the newborn World Coalition Government annexed 80% of the countries of the world. The holdouts either reconsidered and signed treaties or were "dissolved" in a matter of months. The leaders of the new regime gave us all kinds of rationalizations for their actions, ranging from endless border skirmishes between impoverished nations to environmental problems that they claimed could only be solved if all of the "citizens of earth" worked together. If the truth were told, it was all about the money. Years of boom markets and reckless spending finally took their toll, leaving small countries bankrupt and superpowers teetering on the brink of collapse. By uniting the economies of the world all of the old debt was erased and everyone got a clean slate. It was a real mess but at the time it seemed like the only way out. At first World Coalition Government gave a lot of lip service to representing the annexed governments. There was even an advisory council modeled on the United Nations. As the representatives began to enjoy the benefits of a global marketplace they fell silent. In a matter of years all traces of the old governments faded away. It was an economic coup on an unprecedented scale.	„

It's true that "in a matter of years" makes it sound like those years have passed since 2032. But which is more likely, that the dates in Konoko's diary aligning with the year 2032 is a coincidence, or that the manual writer just goofed? I would like to cite this picture as further evidence that Bungie West always planned to set Oni in 2032 (2009 + 23 = 2032). Yes, they could have changed their minds later, but I don't see an advantage in pushing Oni further back in time; we can see that technology is not far advanced beyond our own in some ways, so 2032 seems perfectly plausible to me.

2032-2033, post-Cataclysm: War Against the Syndicate. Seeing their perfect equilibrium shattered, angered that the world was falling to pieces around them, the WCG has the TCTF wage an all-out war against BGI and the Syndicate. Many strongholds that the WCG had pretended not to know about are raided and destroyed in a matter of weeks, with numerous casualties on both sides. However, the WCG soon begins to lose its hold on the world, and the branches of the former TCTF in each country need to focus on maintaining law and order among the general populace, so the firestorm is soon over for BGI and the Syndicate. The casualties in the upper ranks have, however, caused the two criminal organizations to also splinter and re-organize into smaller groups.