Sanctuary Timeline
Jan. 15th, 2011 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityFor my own reference (and also because I am just a tiny bit obsessive), I am trying to build up a Sanctuary timeline. My Bingo card is almost half historical figures, for one thing, so I would like to know where people are at any given moment. Please feel free to suggest edits (or point me in the direction of the person who has already done this...).
For better or worse, let's start with Helen Magnus, apparently born in August of 1850. It gets a bit awkward almost immediately thereafter, since the historic John Druitt was born in 1857, but I can work around that (Tesla was born in '56, but his Actual Historical Record makes placing him anywhere in the timeline a bit of a nightmare, particularly since he never actually went to Oxford, and was in fact in Pittsburgh in 1888).
Anyway: Helen is born in '50. The absolute earliest she could have legally attended Oxford is 1878, when she was nearly thirty, and her classes would not have been mixed. Heck, they weren't even on the campus itself, since the two first Women's colleges sat lectures above a bakery.
I therefore assume that Helen became affiliated with the Sanctuary before she went to Oxford, but possibly not before she tried.
ETA: In the webisodes, there is a scene which indicated this is clearly the case. Why it was cut from the episode, I don't know.
What it comes down to is that the first 38 years of Helen's life are murky. We don't know exactly when or how she met the others, how she got them to take her seriously, how she acquired the Source Blood, or what Gregory thought of all this. The Sanctuary Wiki suggests that Gregory basically bullied people to get her into Oxford as an auditor, but we don't know when (or where, for that matter, because Oxford didn't confer degrees on women until the 1920s) she got the actual paper work to match her "Dr. Helen Magnus" title. All we know for sure, is that by the time Edward is on the throne, she has it (though she still smarts when people call it into question).
(Watson says that Helen hasn't aged since the Spring of '86 in Revelations Part 1, and Helen says that James is 160, which puts his birth year around 1848. Also from conjecture in "For King and Country", we can assume that Adam starts trailing them in late '85, if the source blood was indeed injected in '86. How long the others waited is unknown.)
This brings us handily to 1888, where we have another semi-firm date: Jack the Ripper.
It is implied that John picks up the Energy Being very soon after his change. I think this is a solid theory, because until "Haunted", every one assumes that the Source Blood "unlocked a darkness" in him (when in reality what it did was give him the ability to teleport which was how he acquired the Thing that gives him superstrength, speed, and the bloodlust). The woman Helen witnesses him kill cannot have been Mary Kelly, because Mary Kelly was killed in her room.
(On a personal note, I also rather like the theory that John picks up the Energy Being in 1888, and that events go quickly after that. Mostly because this means that he spent very little time with Helen while under its influence, leaving their courtship, engagement, and so on untainted by a third party that was, essentially, taking advantage of them both.)
Prior to Helen finding out John in the Ripper, she treats him with her blood, extending his lifespan. What caused her to treat him resurfaces in time for the show to begin.
(ETA: WAIT, I'VE FIGURED IT OUT! The Energy Being latches onto John one transport, and immediately begins to kill him, so Helen injects him with her blood, and that means it's her longevity that powers the monster.
...Holy Crap, I love this show.)
After the Ripper, John disappears until 1910, or so, when Kind Edward tasks them with killing Adam Worth. From Helen's reactions to their entrances in "For King and Country", I think it is safe to assume that it's been a while since she's seen the others as well (except James, who she is practicing with). Helen seems to have kind of made peace with her feelings about John at this point, judging from the fact that she doesn't punch him in the face after his line about "Beginning our dance anew" (well, she threatens him right back, which is just as good). Also, they both seem to consider themselves engaged, which is just tragic. James is close by, though not close enough to hear what they're talking about, and it is possible that the conversation he witnesses inspires him to join Helen in her Sanctuary work in order to kill John if necessary.
(Side note: given Tesla's line about London being more interesting than Budapest, it stands to reason that Tesla stuck closely to his Actual Time Line during the years between the injection of the source blood and Adam. After that...well, messy again.)
John disappears again, with Adam's help this time, but between the founding of the Sanctuary network and the closing days of WWII, the other four stay in close contact. One assumes that Tesla helped in the design of the EM shield, not to mention providing a power source at least for Watson's Longevity Suitcase (which he is not yet wearing in "FK&C").
After that our next secure date is January 7th, 1943: the death of Nikola Tesla.
From Tesla's lines in "The Five", we can assume that he hasn't seen Helen since he "died", that he didn't attend his own funeral (which, frankly, surprised me), and that he was in London dodging various agencies with Helen right before he died in New York (which is what makes me think that Helen had not yet started the Old City Sanctuary, or at the very least was not yet the head of it, but rather that she started it after WWII using the contacts she made with Americans during her time on the Western Front). All of the agencies except the Cabal believed him dead (which I think is weird, given that the English at least knew of his powers), and he spends the next 65 odd years trying to recreate his own race.
Nigel also apparently drops off the map, though admittedly somewhat less dramatically. My only real back up information for this is that Helen has to find out about Anna in a letter, right before Nigel dies.
We can assume that Helen has started the Old City Sanctuary by 1951, because that's when The Big Guy arrives.
Nigel's death "in the 60's", and Ashley's implantation in the 80's are the final two dates we have until the show starts up.
In terms of writing, I suppose we have a free pass on Tesla and Nigel (though one can guess that the latter turned down James's offer of a longevity device for whatever reason). James sort of fills in corners around Helen (at least after 1888), John has the most secure timeline, and Helen, thanks her to hints and name-dropping, has a lot of secure points with huge gaps in between them.
This leaves us with Ashley's conception, for which we have three options:
1. Ashley was conceived before the Source Blood injection, and Helen already possessed the wherewithal to freeze the embryo. Helen delayed her pregnancy because she and John were not yet married, and because the Source Blood experiment was looming on the horizon.
ETA: Admittedly, not the best choice, but see comments for further discussion.
2. Ashely was conceived after the Source Blood Injection, but before John was overcome. This timeline would be very, very tight, but the Ripper murders all took place close together, and in the initial days of possession, it can be assumed that John was completely out of control. Helen would have frozen the embryo after John disappeared.
3. Ashley was conceived when the Energy Being was in control of John. I hate this one.
ETA: Either in the 1880s or the 1980s, see comments for discussion.
And I think that pretty much covers it.
Sources: wiki, sanctuary wiki, episodes, general knowledge, The Five Timeline
For better or worse, let's start with Helen Magnus, apparently born in August of 1850. It gets a bit awkward almost immediately thereafter, since the historic John Druitt was born in 1857, but I can work around that (Tesla was born in '56, but his Actual Historical Record makes placing him anywhere in the timeline a bit of a nightmare, particularly since he never actually went to Oxford, and was in fact in Pittsburgh in 1888).
Anyway: Helen is born in '50. The absolute earliest she could have legally attended Oxford is 1878, when she was nearly thirty, and her classes would not have been mixed. Heck, they weren't even on the campus itself, since the two first Women's colleges sat lectures above a bakery.
I therefore assume that Helen became affiliated with the Sanctuary before she went to Oxford, but possibly not before she tried.
ETA: In the webisodes, there is a scene which indicated this is clearly the case. Why it was cut from the episode, I don't know.
What it comes down to is that the first 38 years of Helen's life are murky. We don't know exactly when or how she met the others, how she got them to take her seriously, how she acquired the Source Blood, or what Gregory thought of all this. The Sanctuary Wiki suggests that Gregory basically bullied people to get her into Oxford as an auditor, but we don't know when (or where, for that matter, because Oxford didn't confer degrees on women until the 1920s) she got the actual paper work to match her "Dr. Helen Magnus" title. All we know for sure, is that by the time Edward is on the throne, she has it (though she still smarts when people call it into question).
(Watson says that Helen hasn't aged since the Spring of '86 in Revelations Part 1, and Helen says that James is 160, which puts his birth year around 1848. Also from conjecture in "For King and Country", we can assume that Adam starts trailing them in late '85, if the source blood was indeed injected in '86. How long the others waited is unknown.)
This brings us handily to 1888, where we have another semi-firm date: Jack the Ripper.
It is implied that John picks up the Energy Being very soon after his change. I think this is a solid theory, because until "Haunted", every one assumes that the Source Blood "unlocked a darkness" in him (when in reality what it did was give him the ability to teleport which was how he acquired the Thing that gives him superstrength, speed, and the bloodlust). The woman Helen witnesses him kill cannot have been Mary Kelly, because Mary Kelly was killed in her room.
(On a personal note, I also rather like the theory that John picks up the Energy Being in 1888, and that events go quickly after that. Mostly because this means that he spent very little time with Helen while under its influence, leaving their courtship, engagement, and so on untainted by a third party that was, essentially, taking advantage of them both.)
Prior to Helen finding out John in the Ripper, she treats him with her blood, extending his lifespan. What caused her to treat him resurfaces in time for the show to begin.
(ETA: WAIT, I'VE FIGURED IT OUT! The Energy Being latches onto John one transport, and immediately begins to kill him, so Helen injects him with her blood, and that means it's her longevity that powers the monster.
...Holy Crap, I love this show.)
After the Ripper, John disappears until 1910, or so, when Kind Edward tasks them with killing Adam Worth. From Helen's reactions to their entrances in "For King and Country", I think it is safe to assume that it's been a while since she's seen the others as well (except James, who she is practicing with). Helen seems to have kind of made peace with her feelings about John at this point, judging from the fact that she doesn't punch him in the face after his line about "Beginning our dance anew" (well, she threatens him right back, which is just as good). Also, they both seem to consider themselves engaged, which is just tragic. James is close by, though not close enough to hear what they're talking about, and it is possible that the conversation he witnesses inspires him to join Helen in her Sanctuary work in order to kill John if necessary.
(Side note: given Tesla's line about London being more interesting than Budapest, it stands to reason that Tesla stuck closely to his Actual Time Line during the years between the injection of the source blood and Adam. After that...well, messy again.)
John disappears again, with Adam's help this time, but between the founding of the Sanctuary network and the closing days of WWII, the other four stay in close contact. One assumes that Tesla helped in the design of the EM shield, not to mention providing a power source at least for Watson's Longevity Suitcase (which he is not yet wearing in "FK&C").
After that our next secure date is January 7th, 1943: the death of Nikola Tesla.
From Tesla's lines in "The Five", we can assume that he hasn't seen Helen since he "died", that he didn't attend his own funeral (which, frankly, surprised me), and that he was in London dodging various agencies with Helen right before he died in New York (which is what makes me think that Helen had not yet started the Old City Sanctuary, or at the very least was not yet the head of it, but rather that she started it after WWII using the contacts she made with Americans during her time on the Western Front). All of the agencies except the Cabal believed him dead (which I think is weird, given that the English at least knew of his powers), and he spends the next 65 odd years trying to recreate his own race.
Nigel also apparently drops off the map, though admittedly somewhat less dramatically. My only real back up information for this is that Helen has to find out about Anna in a letter, right before Nigel dies.
We can assume that Helen has started the Old City Sanctuary by 1951, because that's when The Big Guy arrives.
Nigel's death "in the 60's", and Ashley's implantation in the 80's are the final two dates we have until the show starts up.
In terms of writing, I suppose we have a free pass on Tesla and Nigel (though one can guess that the latter turned down James's offer of a longevity device for whatever reason). James sort of fills in corners around Helen (at least after 1888), John has the most secure timeline, and Helen, thanks her to hints and name-dropping, has a lot of secure points with huge gaps in between them.
This leaves us with Ashley's conception, for which we have three options:
1. Ashley was conceived before the Source Blood injection, and Helen already possessed the wherewithal to freeze the embryo. Helen delayed her pregnancy because she and John were not yet married, and because the Source Blood experiment was looming on the horizon.
ETA: Admittedly, not the best choice, but see comments for further discussion.
2. Ashely was conceived after the Source Blood Injection, but before John was overcome. This timeline would be very, very tight, but the Ripper murders all took place close together, and in the initial days of possession, it can be assumed that John was completely out of control. Helen would have frozen the embryo after John disappeared.
3. Ashley was conceived when the Energy Being was in control of John. I hate this one.
ETA: Either in the 1880s or the 1980s, see comments for discussion.
And I think that pretty much covers it.
Sources: wiki, sanctuary wiki, episodes, general knowledge, The Five Timeline
