Alternate Timelines

This page talks about the concept of alternate timelines (ATs), the theory behind them, and their use in the fiction of Big Team.

## Conceptual Theory

An alternate timeline (AT) exists alongside the one you’re in (the present timeline). It can have formed from someone going back in time and doing something that changes the course of events in the past. If those changes are not very significant, the present timeline might “correct” itself to accomodate the changes. (In meta terms, the GMs determine “that’s how it actually happened in our history”.)

If those changes are significant enough, they will create a new, alternate timeline. In this timeline, the changes in events have caused further, more significant changes further down the timeline. (In meta terms, the GMs determine “that’s too much to adopt into canon, so it’s just off in it’s own timeline somewhere”.)

When an AT is created, the person who created it can still travel back to their original timeline due to their personal connection to it. However, because at that point travel has occurred between those two points in time, travel becomes easier to do between those two points later on. For example: if someone goes back in time to 2017 and makes a major change (like causing the Big Team to never be created), that will create a new AT. They can then travel back to their present where the Big Team still exists. Later on, they can travel back to the AT they created and bring others along, visiting the timeline where their team doesn’t exist.

ATs are different from AUs (Alternate Universes) in that no matter how far back in time you go, changes you make will not result in an AU, as AUs operate on fundamentally different laws of the universe. ATs have the same laws as the present timeline does.

## Known Timelines

There are several known ATs. Below are each of them with a list of their main known differences to the present timeline.

### Alternate 1955 - "Colder War"

This AT sprung up from the uncertainty of the outcome of Aquarius' ritual at the end of **OVA - Back To The Beginning**. In that episode, southern Quebec (including Montreal), southern Maine, nearly all of Vermont and New Hampshire, and part of New York state vanished into Reaper One's pocket dimension. Aquarius then performed a ritual to send everyone back to "where they belonged". For Rescue, Grim, The Weatherman and The Jackal this meant the present timeline. For everyone else, in the present timeline's past, it had meant "historically significant figures are sent back to their countries, everyone else becomes inhabitants of the pocket dimension version of Montreal and slowly evolve into the Aquilonian fish-people". Due to that fuzziness in what "where they belong" means, however, another timeline was created where the USA, British Empire and USSR were suddenly without their leadership in the midst of the Cold War.

The outcomes of this are as yet unknown.

### Alternate 1992 - "Dark Tornado"

This AT was created when Herald, Ares and Entantress visited 1992. The main differences with the present timeline include:

* Ellen Drummond is gone
* Teenaged Chris Crossover (a.k.a. Tornado) is a hero battling depression
* His only friend and fellow teen hero is Atomica, who's doomed to become a villain

### Alternate 2017 - "Bat Team"

This AT was created when Ares, Patch and Focus visited 2017. The main differences with the present timeline include:

* Cyclone never lost his powers
* Smokescreen lost his powers
* Wild Thang was permanently transformed into a bat-person
* Big Team was founded two months earlier than in the present timeline

### Alternate 2020 - "Season 4 Noir"

This AT was created during the Season 3 finale of Big Team, when Verve, Herald, Ares and The Jackal were stuck inside of Bloodshot's "soul". Verve sent a message back in time to warn the Big Team of Gambite's incoming attack. This AT is the version of the timeline where her message was never sent. The main differences with the present timeline include:

* The only remaining (senior) members of Big Team are Verve, Aman Isar, Ares and The Jackal
* Halcyon City is decimated