The Legend of Zelda Multiverse Theory

The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom released recently. It’s a great game, one that surprised me in its size and scale. While playing through the story and exploring the map I was once again struck by the complicated mess that is the Zelda Timeline. This is a subject that I find myself coming back to with each new release within the series. I think this is because of just how messy that it is. I’m not the only one that has this fascination seeing how many fan theories evolve around the timeline. I believe I have come with up with a new way of looking at it that goes a long way towards simplifying things.

Identity Override within Video Games

Or how my custom woman character became a man in the sequel.

I’ve become increasingly aware of an annoying trend within video games that I think needs addressing. I’ve come to coin this phenomenon Identity Override. This Identity Override is the tendency of your custom character from one game to be overridden with a generic white guy in the sequel. For us women or nonbinary this overriding of our characters is more than just a slight annoyance. It’s a sign that we’re not welcome within the stories we love. This isn’t something that only happens in bad games, some of the best games of all time do this. Most of my favourite games even do it. Let me give you a few examples.

Fallout 1 is an absolute masterpiece. It’s an old game, but its character creator is still amazing. It allows you to build almost any type of character you want. On top of the varied personalities and skillsets you can design here you can also make your character either male or female. I love this. Each playthrough feels unique even after 27 years. The problems start when you move from Fallout 1 to its sequel. In Fallout 2 you can create your own character again and it’s great. But when you get into the opening village you will find characters that talk about the protagonist from the first game. All of them refer to the character you played as during the first game as a man, using he/him pronouns for him. Later in the game you arrive at the city of Shady Sands. This was a location you could also visit in the first game and because of that the characters from this town remember your previous character. In fact, they have a statue of them. You guessed it, this statue is of a man and all the people in Shady Sands that remember your previous character refer to them as a man. It's clear that the canon of the Fallout world considers the protagonist of the first game to be a man. Your created character is only valid into the sequel if you choose to make a man. This means that when creating a character in the first game there is a definitively correct choice. If you made a woman then you created the wrong character, and it will be ignored by all the games set after the first one.

The Vault Dweller's Statue within Shady Sands from Fallout 2

Where does Aliens Phalanx belong on the timeline?

I have just finished the novel, Aliens Phalanx, by Scott Sigler. It’s a fantastic read that I would highly recommend. This article will contain spoilers and as such I only recommend reading after you have finished the novel.

Aliens Phalanx takes place on the planet of Ataegina. This is an earth-like world with a breathable atmosphere, volcanic activity, drinkable water, three moons, and a hive of deadly Xenomorphs. What makes the story of Phalanx so interesting and unique within the Alien series is just how isolated and removed from wider human culture, society, and of course technology the people of Ataegina are. Because of how isolated Ataegina is it’s almost impossible to tell what year Aliens Phalanx is set. Our best two sources of information on this subject are the book itself and the website, AlienTimeline.wordpress.com. I think it would be best if we went over the history of Ataegina itself before trying to fit it into the wider universe.

Aliens Phalanx Review

Written by Scott Sigler
Published by Titan Books, London, 2020
ISBN: 9781789094015

Aliens Phalanx is a story with such an interesting premise that is used to explore themes of masculinity. This makes for one of the most unique stories within the Aliens universe.

Alien Uncivil War Review

Written by Brendan Deneen
Published by Titan Books, London, 2024
ISBN: 9781803366951

Alien Uncivil War is a novel that excels in mystery and the slow reveal of information. Author Brendan Deneen has a natural talent for creating an intriguing conspiracy. I found myself wanting to read on, constantly saying ‘just one more chapter’, so that I could find out more. Impressively he does this without relying too much on the titular alien. All of this comes together in this impressive story.

Alien Timeline

This is my live timeline of the canon Alien media released. The dates are as accurate as I was able to manage. If you notice any mistakes then feel free to leave a comment with the correct information and if possible your source. I will update the mistake as quickly as possible. Thank you for reading!

Key:
Date Confirmed
Estimated Date
Unknown Date

Alien: Romulus First Impressions

Having just gotten home from the cinema I want to give my first impressions of the new Alien film; Alien Romulus. This is the first new Alien film in seven years, and the first new film since Disney brought Twentieth Century Fox, which means Romulus is important. If this film flops, then the profit obsessed Disney may just abandon this IP, which is a scary thought. 

Thankfully, like Prey with the Predator franchise, Romulus is a wonderful return for the Alien franchise. The plot works both as a standalone story and a sequel to the original 1979 Alien. It works as a sequel as it sees the Wayland-Yutani corporation recovering the wreckage of the USS Nostromo. They bring this onboard the Romulus-Remus Research station. But then the film also works as a standalone story as we have an all-new cast of characters that end up facing the universe’s biggest dick head.

Rain and her adoptive synthetic brother are trapped within the Wayland-Yutani mining colony of Jackson's Star. While he’s not human, Andy is the only family that Rain has left after her parents died from complications of working within the mines. She does have her friends, all who have also lost parents to the dangers of mining. They very much want to escape the planet in order go somewhere safer. It’s clear that the company will never allow any of them to leave. Rain has worked enough hours to entitle her to be redeployed to another colony. When she tries to arrange this redeployment, she is told that the hours needed have been increased due to a worker shortage. I love this. It really ties back to the worker-rights theme of the original 1979 Alien film. It’s obvious to everyone that the company never intends to let Rain, Andy, or any working-class person leave this awful life. Just like Dallas, Kane, Ripley, and the rest of the Nostromo crew, Way-Yu sees Rain and her friends as expendable.

After Rain’s work contract is extended, she meets up with her ex-boyfriend Tyler, who introduces her to the rest of the cast. He explains that they have found an abandoned ship in orbit. With Andy’s help, they will be able to steal the cryo-chambers onboard. With these they would all be able to leave Jackson’s Star and make it to Yvaga, a planet with much better living conditions. So, with not much of a choice left to her, Rain decides to go with her friends. They make their way to the ship which turns out to be a research outpost. It’s here that they find the Xenomorphs, and the action begins in earnest.

Jackson’s Star is not a wealthy colony, and this is mirrored in the old school bulky monitors displaying 8-bit interfaces, that all feel ripped right out of the first film. The colony itself shares a lot of its visual design with Hadley’s Hope from Aliens. The Romulus station looks a bit fancier but it’s still not the most high-tech we’ve seen within the series. That is until near the end when our characters find a lab where Way-Yu have been experimenting on the Plagiarus Praepotens found within the Facehuggers. This lab is as fancy as all hells. This visually shows us what the company values. The living and working conditions of its workers are given almost no budget, but the Xeno research is given the best lab money can buy.

I also love how much Romulus pays attention to the extended universe of the franchise. While we haven’t had any films since Alien Covenant in 2017, we have had plenty of novels, a tabletop RPG with a few canon campaigns, and a couple of video games. The name Plagiarus Praepotens was first used within the novel ‘Alien: The Cold Forge’ by Alex White. It’s what the facehugger deposits within its host, and eventually develops into a Chestburster. It’s a variant of the black goo pathogen we saw during ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Alien: Covenant’. We’re also told that Yvaga III, where our characters intend to go, doesn’t allow synthetics. This might hint at it being a UPP colony as they have outlawed human-like machines within their space.

I’m still not one hundred percent sure how I feel about the final act. I don’t want to go into any spoilers, but I thought it was heading in one direction but then it ended up going somewhere else entirely. All I will say is that I was expecting to see a Neomorph and instead ended up with something else. It’s not bad but it pulls from a part of the franchise I thought would be left alone. I enjoyed it. It was most certainly done better than when it was attempted before. But it felt like a strange direction to take the story. Honestly, I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. If you know, you know, ya’know?

Ultimately the film itself may end up being one of my favourites in the franchise. I’ve only seen it once so I can’t place it too well now, but I’d say it’s up there with ‘Aliens’ and ‘Alien Covenant’ so far. Either my second or third favourite Alien film. I can’t stress just how much I enjoyed Romulus. It feels wonderfully faithful to not just the films that came before it but also the extended media.