Xenoblade Chronicles Timeline Outline

Staging a role playing game in the Xenoblade Chronicles universe requires that we know when events happened.  This will remain one of the most complex questions of the setting, so expect many revisions.

Relative Timeline includes events from the Bionis and the Mechonis.  I’ll try to include setting details, which should assist in determining what existed and when.

End of the Old World

• Zansa and Meyneth ascend to godhood, and the old world is swept away.  The Bionis and the Mechonis rise from the sea, and take on characteristics consistent with the wishes of their respective gods.
• Meyneth wished for a world of harmony and order, and she creates the Machina, who revere her as a god.  Capital of Agniratha founded.
• Zansa wished for a world teeming with life to grow more ether, and conflict to collect it.  He creates the Telethia, who hunt as wild beasts but possess immense power and telepathy. 

Telepathy itself is a mystery; it would be a handy power for hunting wild beasts, but not insurmountable, while against an organized army telepathy could be an unfair advantage.  There’s a story here, but there are no more details.

• The Giants awaken, and build holdings across the Bionis.
• Prison Island is known to exist long before the High Entia.  Riki instantly recognizes the statues guarding and sealing the path to Zansa’s prison as “Dinobeasts,” which is his word for Telethia.
• Some Telethia disobey orders; become High Entia (humanoids with no telepathy, but distinct, free personalities).
• Contact between the Giants, led by Arglas, the High Entia, and the Machina, represented by Egil, leads to an exchange of knowledge.  The Monados are forged in this time (at least two, but there are five prototypes).
• Zansa seizes the Monado, and uses it (through the Bionis) to attack the Mechonis.  The Machina capital Agniratha is the target.  Zansa launches a full assault with the Monado and follows up with a Telethia attack.
• Meyneth, through the Mechonis, fights back.  The two titans “die” impaling each other. 

Age of Binding

The Monado is seized and sealed away on Valak Mountain.  Zansa himself is chained up on Prison Island by the High Entia, and he inhabits Arglas “the last of the Giants.” 

Unclear if Arglas was the last of the Giants in his own time, or in the time he was seen by Shulk in Xenoblade.

Machina survivors regroup on the Fallen Arm of the Mechonis, Agniratha overrun with Telethia.  Presumably Egil takes charge of the first efforts to retake the Agniratha, but this is not known.

(Unknown date) Founding of the Mechon army.

(Uncertain Date after the Binding) Imperial Capital of Alcamoth founded by the High Entia, far above in the Eryth sea on the Head of the Bionis.

Extension of Imperial Holdings.  High Entia ruins can be found in far away Satorl Marsh (lower back), and their technology forms the standard for Homs designs (Bionis’ Leg).

(Uncertain Date after the Binding) The practice of mingling Homs blood with High Entians begins; it is institutionalized at the highest ranks of society by the practice of bigamy (First Consort is High Entian, Second Consort is Homs). 

This practice suggests that they knew that their god and prisoner, Zansa, could regress them to Telethia at any time once free, something they refer to as the curse.  They also knew that it was coded into their genes, and that diluting their genes with Homs reduced the susceptibility to the curse. How they knew could be through genetic study, but I wonder quietly where the Telethia came from who attacked the Machina capital.

(Uncertain Date after the Binding) The High Entia withdraw behind Alcamoth’s impressive defenses.  Homs begin to think of the High Entia as a myth over time.  Nopon are still welcome.

(Uncertain Date after the Binding) The Great Tree of Makna Forest is inhabited by the Nopon.  Frontier Village is founded within.  Nopon spread across the Bionis as traders, and join every community.

(Uncertain Date after the Binding) Colony 6 founded by the Homs.

(Uncertain Date after the Binding) Colony 9 founded by the Homs.

(12 to 13 years before Fall) Homs expedition to Valak Mountain breaks the seal on Monado.  All but Shulk are killed.  Monado and Shulk recovered by Dickson, returned to Colony 9.

(1 year before Fall) Massive Mechon assault threatens Colony 6, while air assaults of Mechon threaten Colony 9.  Dunban (Homs) wields the Monado in defense of the Colonies and defeats the Mechon.  It costs him his right arm.

(<1 year before Fall) Egil adjusts Mechon tactics, reprograms Homs to serve his Mechon army as Face Mechon to counteract the Monado.

Age of the Fall

Events of Xenoblade Chronicles, Meyneth and Zansa lost and presumed dead.

(Within 8 generations) The High Entian Ancestral Computer (in the tomb) scans Melia and predicts evolution from her line.  It stamps the Ancestor’s seal of approval on her mask.

The Age before the Binding is all Myth, the equivalent for us of the Trojan War or conflicts between the Egyptians and the Hittites.  We know of them, but details are sparse.  Egil is a constant presence in the timeline, and he is said to have lived millennia before Zansa killed him in the game.  The Age after the Binding is not much better for details, until we come to events as related by the Homs and the Battle of Sword Valley.

In the Age before the Binding, both the Bionis and Mechonis are moving around, active giant robots.  For the entirety of the Age Between, both are standing dead still, Mechonis still impaling the Bionis while the Monado is sealed away.  After the Age of the Fall, the Mechonis is a mountain of scrap and the Bionis has lost the strength to stand, falling forward and flooding everything on the front.  Campaigns in this age need to take that into account.