Trying To Piece Together The DST Timeline

[WinterWondering]

Hello survivors! After my post on the 1910 world expo, I've been interested in trying to figure out the order of events in the lore. Most of this info is based on Winona's animated short, the William Carter puzzles, and inferences. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks!

 

1901: William Carter moves to the USA. [Source: William Carter puzzles]

1904: William goes missing in a train crash. He presumably changes his name to Maxwell around this time. [Source: William Carter puzzles]

1905: Maxwell starts looking for an assistant. Charlie presumably is hired around this time. [Source: William Carter puzzles]

1906: Maxwell and Charlie perform their last act and are taken to the Constant. [Source: William Carter puzzles]

Note: Wigfrid likely enters the Constant soon after Maxwell, given that she reads about the earthquake he causes in a newspaper, but it's unclear how soon after (credit to Anis5420).

1910: A world expo takes place in Belgium. This is mentioned by Winona's conspiracy board, although why/if it's important isn't confirmed. [Source: Winona's conspiracy board]

1911: Wickerbottom's library burns down. [Source: Winona's conspiracy board]

Note: Willow must enter the Constant sometime after Wickerbottom. How soon after is unknown.

Note: Assuming Willow is in her 20s in 1911, her animated short likely takes place in the late 1890s, meaning that she was hallucinating shadow creatures before Maxwell enters the Constant.

1914: Wendy hears strange music and enters the Constant (credit to Siren 11 and Garet Skott). [Source: vignette]

1919: Voxola opens, and closes soon after, presumably in the same year. Assuming the Voxola fire happens in 1919, Winona enters the Constant in 1919 as well. [Source: post on forums by Kevin, a Klei dev]

Note: When Charlie takes Winona into the Constant, she looks like pre-ANR Charlie. This most likely means that Winona enters the Constant before Maxwell is off the nightmare throne. 

Note: Given Winona's animated short, Wendy, Wickerbottom, and Woodie are most likely taken to the Constant before Winona. WX-78 has at least begun to have been built and is also presumably in the Constant by the time Winona enters.

Note: Given how old Wagstaff looks in WX and Webber's shorts respectively, it seems that Webber's short happens after WX's (credit to -Nick-).

Note: Walter enters the Constant after Woodie, although whether or not he enters before Winona is unknown. He does, however, enter presumably post-ANR, although likely pre-RoT (credit to Maxposting).

 

That's all I found. Tell me if you find anything else and I'll edit the timeline. Thanks! 

[Maxposting]

14 minutes ago, WinterWondering said:

Note: Walter enters the Constant after Woodie, although whether or not he enters before Winona is unknown.

In his animatic you can see the Moon has been cracked already, indicating Alter's activity, which- supposedly- happens after ANR.

Regarding the Wilson being the-last-to-enter dilemma, I picture the human world and Constant as two seperate timelines, which usually follow linearly, but occassionally survivors (Winona and Walter) who get taken from the human realm resurface way later on inside the Constant (yes this is a way to help tidy up the plotholes without dismissing or retconning stuff because i love lore so much)
Wendy is revealed to be 9-11 (or 8-10, I'm not certain), confirmed later by JoeW to be 11 (10) 

[-Nick-]

1 hour ago, WinterWondering said:

WX-78 has at least begun to have been built and is also presumably in the Constant by the time Winona enters.

WX-78 would have to be in the constant well before Webber. Wagstaff is seen to have grey hair in Webber's short while in WX's he has full black hair.

So Wx could be in the constant for around 20-30ish years depending on Wagstaff's age.

[WinterWondering]

 

57 minutes ago, Maxposting said:

In his animatic you can see the Moon has been cracked already, indicating Alter's activity, which- supposedly- happens after ANR.

Regarding the Wilson being the-last-to-enter dilemma, I picture the human world and Constant as two seperate timelines, which usually follow linearly, but occassionally survivors (Winona and Walter) who get taken from the human realm resurface way later on inside the Constant (yes this is a way to help tidy up the plotholes without dismissing or retconning stuff because i love lore so much)
Wendy is revealed to be 9-11 (or 8-10, I'm not certain), confirmed later by JoeW to be 11 (10) 

 

5 minutes ago, -Nick- said:

WX-78 would have to be in the constant well before Webber. Wagstaff is seen to have grey hair in Webber's short while in WX's he has full black hair.

Thank you both so much for the info! I'll edit that in! 

Walter entering after ANR is interesting. That means either Charlie brings him to the Constant or one of Maxwell's portals is active longer than anticipated and accidentally pulls him in. I'm inclined to believe that it was Woodie's portal that was active for longer than intended, since Maxwell seems to have to make deals to open portals (for example, why doesn't he just take George Witherstone to the Constant? I'm assuming it's because he now knows not to make a deal with him).

Wendy's being 11 doesn't really help us figure out when she enters the Constant as far as I know, since we don't know how old she is when Jack mentions her in a letter to William. I don't know though, it's still interesting.

I think Wilson probably enters the Constant after WX, and potentially after Winona, since he moves into what's likely either Wagstaff or WX's house, and those would only be vacant after the Voxola fire and WX's being shoved into a portal respectively. 

You're right about Wagstaff's hair. I didn't think about that. The more info we get on Wagstaff, the more I begin to think he's entered the Constant, somehow left, and then sent a hologram in, although I'm not sure.

But yes, you're right about the timelines being a bit hard to pin down because of the whole time-works-differently-in-the-Constant thing. Given what's been said about it, I'm inclined to believe it isn't just a consistent conversion like 8 minutes in the real world = 24 hours in the Constant; from the loading screen tips about it, I think it's sort of random how time translates and it can also feel like more or less time has passed for the people in the Constant.

Either way, thank you so much!

[-Nick-]

12 minutes ago, WinterWondering said:

You're right about Wagstaff's hair. I didn't think about that. The more info we get on Wagstaff, the more I begin to think he's entered the Constant, somehow left, and then sent a hologram in, although I'm not sure.

But yes, you're right about the timelines being a bit hard to pin down because of the whole time-works-differently-in-the-Constant thing. Given what's been said about it, I'm inclined to believe it isn't just a consistent conversion like 8 minutes in the real world = 24 hours in the Constant; from the loading screen tips about it, I think it's sort of random how time translates and it can also feel like more or less time has passed for the people in the Constant.

Either way, thank you so much!

Yeah its mostly just guess work for stuff thats not concrete. I don't think Wagstaff has ever been truly in the constant so i kinda trust using his aging as a way to calculate the timeline is fine.

plus Klei intentionally changed his age so i think it holds up

[Siren11]

41 minutes ago, WinterWondering said:

Wendy's being 11 doesn't really help us figure out when she enters the Constant as far as I know, since we don't know how old she is when Jack mentions her in a letter to William. I don't know though, it's still interesting.

There’s a vignette (Wendy’s Nightstand?) that has a diary entry from April 1914. She talks about hearing strange music and thinks Abigail might be trying to contact her. I always assumed it was Maxwell, and that was her last entry before she ended up in the Constant.

 

(Idk how canon the vignettes are, but it works with the time frame.)

[Popian]

If I recall correctly, there are some detailed lore posts that have touched on this if you want to go digging a few hundred pages back.

1 hour ago, SSneaky said:

we shouldn't trust what has happened in the constant, time seems to flow differently there.

that being said it somehow also follows (word i cannot find).

like, the moon falling -> moon grotto is found cannonically.

Causality? I think canon suggests that it behaves like a wave that some have managed to influence but not control.

[Garett Skott]

I've made a timeline a while back. It's missing some recent events, but it still seems to mostly hold up:

Red = character enters the Constant (there's exact dates and possible time spans)

Orange = event in the "normal" world

Green = event in the Costant

This is all based on old dev posts & animated shorts. I hope that helps, have fun theorizing!

 

About the time flow in Costant, there is a loading tip that says: "Time moves differently in the Constant. Instead of a monotonous forward march, seconds and eternities seem to throw caution to the wind and do-si-do backwards and forwards as they please".

The first part means that time isn't always at the same speed, but can get faster and slow down. This explains why Maxwell says that 1906 to 1921 was an "eternity" while other survivors seems to be much more fresh: the span from '06 to '10 was very slow compared to the normal world while time from '10 onward goes faster, possibly even quicker than normal. 

The second part is more... vague. "Do-si-do" is a dance move with many variations where two people usually spin around in circles together or around each other so apparently time can also flows backwards while... going forwards? And the two dancers are normal time and the Costant's time? Or different timelines? Or past and future? Or maybe the Costant's time just doesn't make any sense? Maybe I'm just reading too much into this? Idk. I'm at a loss with this part, tell me what you think about it.

[Anis5240]

I think Wigfrid got into the Constant within a few weeks from the San Francisco earthquake, since the newspaper she read talked about people still missing from the event.

[WinterWondering]

Thank you all so much for the help! I'll try to respond to each of these individually:

11 hours ago, SSneaky said:

we shouldn't trust what has happened in the constant, time seems to flow differently there.

that being said it somehow also follows (word i cannot find).

like, the moon falling -> moon grotto is found cannonically.

That's absolutely true, thank you. I think that the Constant has at least has some degree of cause and effect, but its time doesn't line up with or convert to time in the real world, so trying to figure out what happens in each dimension in relation to each other is pretty difficult.

11 hours ago, Siren11 said:

There’s a vignette (Wendy’s Nightstand?) that has a diary entry from April 1914. She talks about hearing strange music and thinks Abigail might be trying to contact her. I always assumed it was Maxwell, and that was her last entry before she ended up in the Constant.

 

(Idk how canon the vignettes are, but it works with the time frame.)

I didn't notice that, actually! Thank you so much. I'm pretty sure vignettes are canon although I'm not sure. I'll add that to the timeline.

10 hours ago, Popian said:

If I recall correctly, there are some detailed lore posts that have touched on this if you want to go digging a few hundred pages back.

Causality? I think canon suggests that it behaves like a wave that some have managed to influence but not control.

I'll try looking through older posts, thank you! I think that the Constant does have some sort of timeline, although whether it's linear or not is hard to say.

1 hour ago, Garett Skott said:

I've made a timeline a while back. It's missing some recent events, but it still seems to mostly hold up:

Red = character enters the Constant (there's exact dates and possible time spans)

Orange = event in the "normal" world

Green = event in the Costant

This is all based on old dev posts & animated shorts. I hope that helps, have fun theorizing!

 

About the time flow in Costant, there is a loading tip that says: "Time moves differently in the Constant. Instead of a monotonous forward march, seconds and eternities seem to throw caution to the wind and do-si-do backwards and forwards as they please".

The first part means that time isn't always at the same speed, but can get faster and slow down. This explains why Maxwell says that 1906 to 1921 was an "eternity" while other survivors seems to be much more fresh: the span from '06 to '10 was very slow compared to the normal world while time from '10 onward goes faster, possibly even quicker than normal. 

The second part is more... vague. "Do-si-do" is a dance move with many variations where two people usually spin around in circles together or around each other so apparently time can also flows backwards while... going forwards? And the two dancers are normal time and the Costant's time? Or different timelines? Or past and future? Or maybe the Costant's time just doesn't make any sense? Maybe I'm just reading too much into this? Idk. I'm at a loss with this part, tell me what you think about it.

Thank you so much! This lays it out very well! My only comment is that I think Woodie goes missing before the Voxola fire, given his missing poster being in Winona's animated short, although it's cropped out and hard to tell if it's him. But I don't know. Thank you, though. This is very helpful! As for the flow of time in the Constant, I think the "do-si-do" part isn't specifically referring to the dance, although I don't know for sure. I think you're definitely right about the first part, though. Time definitely can speed up and slow down. I also agree that the ancients come before Maxwell. Great timeline, thank you!

27 minutes ago, Anis5240 said:

I think Wigfrid got into the Constant within a few weeks from the San Francisco earthquake, since the newspaper she read talked about people still missing from the event.

That's a good point, thank you! I'll add that to the timeline. I searched through the animated short but there were no dates on the newspapers, so it's hard to tell. It also says she's part of a "string of disappearances," so she's not the first person to enter the Constant. We also don't know how old the newspaper is, so it's hard to say. Thanks so much, though!

[Garett Skott]

1 hour ago, WinterWondering said:

My only comment is that I think Woodie goes missing before the Voxola fire, given his missing poster being in Winona's animated short, although it's cropped out and hard to tell if it's him.

Ah, I forgot about that. Walter does find a radio in Woodie's cabin though, so I assumed he got kidnapped like that too. We know the radio must come after Voxola (confirmed by the devs) so maybe Woodie decided to get away from society and live in the woods after he got cursed and that's why he's missing.

[WinterWondering]

1 hour ago, Garett Skott said:

Ah, I forgot about that. Walter does find a radio in Woodie's cabin though, so I assumed he got kidnapped like that too. We know the radio must come after Voxola (confirmed by the devs) so maybe Woodie decided to get away from society and live in the woods after he got cursed and that's why he's missing.

Maybe, I sort of assumed it wasn't a Voxola radio? We see a gramophone in Maxwell's short despite it being before 1919, so I'm assuming there were other brands before then? IDK.

[Cassielu]

4 hours ago, WinterWondering said:

The second part is more... vague. "Do-si-do" is a dance move with many variations where two people usually spin around in circles together or around each other so apparently time can also flows backwards while... going forwards? And the two dancers are normal time and the Costant's time? Or different timelines? Or past and future? Or maybe the Costant's time just doesn't make any sense? Maybe I'm just reading too much into this? Idk. I'm at a loss with this part, tell me what you think about it.

That's right! I agree and believe that time in The Constant and timeline on Earth is nonlinear correlation.

At least The order things enter/project into The Constant does not represent the order they leave Earth. There have been cases in The SW dlc of survivors encountering items from the future, and Wanda's presence is a testament to how easy corss time is for supernatural forces in The Constant.

 

[Maxposting]

I'd also like to mention that both (so far) known cases of characters being non-linearly "delayed" while entering Constant happened AFTER someone else had previously used the form of transportation; Winona used the portal after Wagstaff and Walter used the radio after Woodie.

edit: here's my timeline i crudely made a while ago

Spoiler