Storyline
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| “ | Who I am does not concern you.
— Elizabeth[1]
|
” |
Although Team Fortress 2 does not have a story mode or single-player campaign, the storyline of the game has been mostly revealed through comics, Meet the Team videos, and media released in connection with major updates. For example, the Halloween update of October 2009 (and Halloween update of October 2010 and 2011), WAR! Update of December 2009, and Engineer Update of July 2010 have all added to the official Team Fortress continuity in one way or another. Hidden links within these pages as well as examinations of Team Fortress 2 comic book pages are used to contribute to the various dates in the "Detailed timeline" section below.
Contents
1822
Mann Family
The Mann family's backstory begins in the 19th century with the wealthy Englishman, Zepheniah Mann. Zepheniah Mann was the owner and proprietor of Mann & Sons Munitions Concerns – which also went by the name of Zepheniah Mann & Sons Co., but is better known by the name of Mann Co.. His wife, Bette, gave birth to three sons on September 2nd of 1822; Redmond, Blutarch and Gray, but died in childbirth. Though Redmond and Blutarch were perfectly normal, Gray was underweight, and had learned to talk inside the womb. Zepheniah ordered the baby to be smothered, but he was abducted by an eagle during the "Great Eagle Scourge of 1822". The remaining Mann brothers grew up without knowledge of their missing brother.
Gray was well cared for by his eagle abductor. He was fed grubs and mice, kept warm under her breast and accepted by her children. Gray grew strong under the eagle's care and when he was strong enough, he killed her and her children and ate them all before crawling back to civilization. Elizabeth would be hired as a governess by Zepheniah, who told her to stir up a rivalry between his sons until one of them killed the other, at which point the survivor would inherit the Mann fortune.
1850
Zepheniah's Will
Around 1850, Zepheniah bought a large amount of land on the United States by petition of Redmond and Blutarch, to expand the munitions business. When he and his sons arrived there, they discovered the gravel pits and dustbowls that he had purchased were useless; in addition, Zepheniah had contracted numerous illnesses due to the trip made across the world. With his last will and testament, Zepheniah set up the events of the Team Fortress series by leaving half of his useless new land to each of his sons – for them to fight over for the rest of their lives - as a punishment for their behavior that made him lose a fortune and his life. Mann Co. was given to Barnabus Hale who was his former private detective and deputy. He also left Elizabeth the "miracle gravel" cache that he discovered on a trip to "Terra Australis". According to him, Gray had resurfaced the year before and wanted to blackmail him for it, so he entrusted Elizabeth with it, to keep it secret and safe.
Shortly after the will was signed, Elizabeth revealed that she had lied to Zepheniah and planned for the brothers to fight each other forever. Some time later, she would hang herself only to be resurrected by Gray injecting her with Australium. After lying to him about the Australium she had inherited, she exhumed Zepheniah's corpse to bring him back to life and force him to watch his sons fight forever.
Beginnings of RED vs. BLU
Comprised of Billy the Kid (Scout), Stonewall Jackson (Soldier), Abraham Lincoln (Pyro), Alfred Nobel (Demoman), John Henry (Heavy), Nikola Tesla (Engineer), Sigmund Freud (Medic), Davy Crockett (Sniper), and Fu Manchu (Spy), Blutarch had his crack mercenary team set and was eager to claim his land. However, Redmond had assembled his own team of mercenaries and was making similar plans to gain control of his brother's land. Reliable Excavation Demolition and Builders League United proceeded to enter into a massive stalemate as they attempted to destroy each other and take the land for their respective Mann sibling.
1890
Radigan Conagher
Forty years later,[2] Redmond and Blutarch were still engaged in their unwinnable war.
As Blutarch neared death from old age, he called in an expert craftsman named Radigan Conagher to construct for him a machine that would allow him to live on, to "make [him] a monster", by artificially extending his life. Radigan agreed.
Upon returning to his store that evening, Radigan found a stranger who had already made her way past his locked door. Knowing she couldn't convince Radigan to change his mind about building Blutarch's life extender, this stranger asked Radigan to build Redmond a machine as well. As payment, she gave him a hundred pounds of Australium – a powerful element found only in Australia which had caused the nation of unintelligent savages to become extremely intelligent and develop such technological marvels as teleportation and cloaking techniques.
Radigan agreed and became super-intelligent due to the Australium. He went on to develop Life Extender Machines for Redmond and Blutarch, and at least one more for an unnamed party.
1960s
Dell Conagher
When Blutarch Mann realizes his Life Extender Machine is failing, he contacts the BLU Engineer, Dell Conagher, who is the grandson of Radigan Conagher, to fix it. Blutarch provides Dell with his grandfather's papers, robbed from Radigan's desecrated grave. Dell repairs and improves the design of the Life Extender Machines. The design of the Sentry Gun manufactured and sold by TF Industries, and widely employed in the Gravel and Robot Wars, is credited to Dell Conagher, although the original design is his grandfather's.
1968
Gravel War
- This is the main setting for the in-game events of Team Fortress 2.
During the Summer of 1968, nine individuals - the Scout, the Soldier, the Pyro, the Demoman, the Heavy Weapons Guy, the Engineer, the Medic, the Sniper, and the Spy - were recruited by Reliable Excavation & Demolition (RED) and Builders League United (BLU) to continue Redmond and Blutarch's neverending war to seize the land left to them by their deceased father.
Helen, a possible descendant of Elizabeth, acts as the overseer of the large-scale battles fought amongst these nine mercenaries. Descendant of Barnabas Hale, Saxton Hale, runs the renowned weapons and headwear business Mann Co., a subsidiary of the Administrator's shadowy company, TF Industries.
WAR!
When the RED Demoman and BLU Soldier meet and become friends at an explosives convention, the Administrator is severely angered as they may share information about their job and discover they're working for the same person. With the help of Saxton Hale, she misleads both men into thinking the other is trying to kill them, sparking a bloody war.
US Senate investigation
- "Dear Lord in Heaven." — Senator Mitchell Gray (US Democratic Party senator for California)
In an attempt to rid themselves of weapons involved in a US Senate investigation, Mann Co. sends a "monkeynaut" named Poopy Joe into space. The rocket is originally fueled with liquid Australium, with the entire national reserve of the United States' Australium being committed to the project. Shortly before takeoff, Saxton Hale replaces the Australium with defective suitcase explosives. As a result, the rocket crashes, killing Poopy Joe. Saxton unsuccessfully tries to cover up the event in subsequent Senate hearings. Moreover, after the crash, no trace of the supplied Australium was found.
The Senate investigation is promptly closed when a Ms. [redacted], under questioning before the executive session, states her actions and objectives regarding the Australium.
Mann Co. Online
Later, Saxton Hale discovers the Internet (which notably did not exist until 1969, the year after) and uses it to open the online Mann Co. Store for players to purchase weapons and items.
1971
Gray Mann
Seeking to take control of RED and BLU, Gray Mann sent two tear-stained letters to each of his brothers in secret, hoping to get them to meet with each other. Redmond and Blutarch rented the Alamo, and apparently transported it to New Mexico for their meeting, guarded by a group of Engineers under Redmond's employ. Blutarch proposed the idea of a truce, and foolishly suggests the idea of a pregnancy machine, stating that they can use it on one of them to produce an heir, ignorant of the absurdity of the plan. Blutarch states that because of the pointless fighting all of their life, the Mann Family Line would die out. Redmond agreed, and the two shook hands, each thanking each other for "sending" the tear-stained letter to the other.
After the two shake, Gray enters the Alamo, having killed Redmond's Engineers, leaving the three alone. He introduces himself to the two as Gray Mann, their brother, and explains that he sent the letters. Unfortunately, the two appear to be suffering some sort of cognitive disorder, and Blutarch and Redmond apparently forget who Gray is just seconds after he introduces himself. It is noted that Gray appears to be wearing some sort of mechanical device on his spine, possibly of his construction, it is later revealed that this is an improved version of the Life Extender Machines. Gray begins to recount the tale of the brothers' birth, and explains how he was taken by an eagle shortly after he spoke with their father. He explains how he was raised by the eagle as one of its own, and how he later killed it and her children to feed himself.
He goes on to explain how, unlike how Redmond and Blutarch had their empires handed to them, he had to build his own out of scratch. Gray tells Redmond and Blutarch that he watched for a hundred and fifty years as they both wasted their father's fortune over an "asinine war, over worthless pits of gravel." He asks them to consider their true birthright, and tells them that it's "the only thing in this hell-blasted landscape actually worth fighting over", which appears to be Mann Co. Redmond dismisses his claims, stating that gravel powers the world's steam engines, showing how uninformed about the world he actually is. Gray grows tired of his responses, and kills both Redmond and Blutarch by stabbing them in the back.
That night, the ghosts of Redmond and Blutarch argue over who outlived the other. After fighting for a while, they settle on contacting a lawyer, who turns out to be the Soldier, to decide who is the victor. He tells them that the true winner would be decided when the other's spirit passes on. The two then arrange for the mercenaries of RED and BLU to push carts containing the other brother's corpse to Hell. With one team winning, the opposing brother drags both teams to Hell with them. One team manages to beat the other to a spellbook and escape back to the surface, presumably leaving the other behind.
Robot War
After years of signs and rumors, Gray makes his move against Mann Co., sending a massive robot army to attack all of the company's facilities three days after slaying his brothers. Saxton Hale was too busy wrestling a Yeti to deal with the crisis himself, so he sends a video message to the remaining RED and BLU mercenaries informing them that with Redmond and Blutarch dead, the Gravel War has finally ended and they no longer have jobs. He then immediately re-hires the team to defend Mann Co. against the robots.
The Robot War continues for about a year, with the cooperating mercenaries successfully defending hundreds of Mann Co. facilities in the Badlands and worldwide. Miss Pauling becomes the active leader of the mercenaries. Soldier emerges as an erstwhile "tactical mastermind"; devising decoy facilities and infiltrating Gray's island base using a flimsy disguise.
After continuous defeats, Gray Mann develops a more intelligent Mecha-Engineer, but never-the-less fails in the following assault on Mann Co. Headquarters.
Early 1972
Takeover of Mann Co.
After the Mercenaries successfully defend Mann Co. against the robot attacks, wary of another intractable stalemate, Gray decides to change his approach. He goes directly to Saxton Hale at Mann Co.'s headquarters, and declares that the war is over — he gives up. But then he says he is there for the Mann Co. Challenge, offering a fight with Hale for the ownership of the company, a policy Hale made himself. After Hale grabs and punches Gray with ease, Gray declares that he is not the one who will be fighting, but instead, Gray's daughter named Olivia, an underage girl, will fight Hale. Hale refuses to fight her, ultimately granting Mann Co. ownership to Gray, who later sends the mercenaries after him. However, Hale wouldn't go out without a fight and manages to escape all the while causing severe damage to what was once his property. After this, Gray proceeds to fire the mercenaries for their failure while the Administrator orders Miss Pauling, her assistant, to hide. The mercenaries scatter, but Scout and Spy are later arrested before they manage to escape Teufort.
Late 1972
Assemble the team.
Six months after the loss of Mann Co. to Gray, Pauling receives a message to "Assemble the team."
The mercenaries have scattered. Three mercenaries remained in the Southwest; Soldier gives guided tours to homes of the stars, Pyro is an engineering company CEO, and Demoman is a drunkard living with his mother. Sniper has "gone bush" in Australia. Heavy has returned to his family home in Siberia. Medic has some important position and is unreachable. The whereabouts of Engineer (Dell) are unknown to the rest of the team.
Posing as a policeman, Miss Pauling first recovers Soldier, but not before setting Merasmus up to take the rap for Soldier’s murder of Tom Jones. She easily entices Pyro and Demoman from their current situations, and drives the three to Teufort to save Scout and Spy.
Trial at Teufort
Arriving at Teufort, the group splits up.
Miss Pauling takes Pyro with her on her tasks. Pauling first meets in an alley with the "Administrator" (a very aged woman who keeps her actual appearance hidden from Pauling). The woman claims to have collected 89,000 tons of Australium and gives Pauling instructions to get the "one last cache of Australium". Miss Pauling and Pyro then go to the Teufort library to locate and destroy genealogy records. They burn the paper copies, learning that the microfiche copies had been destroyed a year earlier.
Demoman and Soldier go to the courthouse to locate Scout and Spy, but they reveal themselves to the court and are arrested. The four mercenaries are tried at court, convicted of municipal misfeasance, and sentenced to hanging. Miss Pauling arrives just in time to save the four by clearing up questions of mayoral duties.
Close on their heels, Gray Mann is looking for the same records as Pauling, but only finds a burnt scrap of a birth record showing the name "Helen".
Heavy's and Sniper's families
Through the Director's filmed interviews, the Administrator learned details of Heavy's and Sniper's families. She located their families and had photographs taken and sent to Sniper and Heavy as threats against talking to anyone about their jobs. Heavy and Sniper vowed to kill whoever threatened their families. After the loss of Mann Co., while most of the other mercenaries remained around the Badlands region, Sniper and Heavy left the country to join their families.
After the Teufort trial, Miss Pauling's team splits up again. Soldier, Scout, and Pyro are in Siberia to locate Heavy, while Miss Pauling, Spy, and Demoman leave for Australia to find Sniper. They learn what has happened to the respective families:
- "Big girls who do not need bossy old Misha anymore." — Heavy (A Cold Day in Hell)
Heavy's mother and sisters were attacked by "bad men" before Heavy returned to Siberia. Heavy's sisters dealt harshly with the attackers, killing them all. His sisters and mother follow him to America; Zhanna, in particular, joins the mercenaries as the Soldier's girlfriend and then fiancé.
- "So you're a Kiwi now, huh?" — Miss Pauling (Gun Mettle Campaign)
Sniper's parents died around the time the Administrator vanished. Their death was convenient, since Sniper then discovered that he was adopted and is therefore willing to go to New Zealand with Miss Pauling to locate his birth parents, who just happen to have the Australium cache that Miss Pauling was sent to acquire.
Darling’s team: Saxton Hale and Maggie
After losing Mann Co., Saxton Hale seeks help from his mentor, now nemesis, Charles Darling. However, Hale was so incensed by Darling's zoo that he burned most of it down. For this crime, he spent months in jail. Upon his release, Saxton is met by his ex-girlfriend, Maggie, who now works for Darling.
The Darling family has been connected with the Mann family since the beginning; so, Charles is well-aware of the properties of Australium. Darling recruits Saxton Hale for his own plan to collect a cache of Australium with the promise of helping Hale get Mann Co. back.
Saxton and Maggie encounter Scout and Heavy at Ayers Rock. Neither Heavy nor Saxton tells the full truth to the other; Saxton and Maggie do not disclose that they are working for Darling, while Heavy is misleading in his statement that they were sent by "the old woman". Saxton and Maggie transport Heavy and Scout to Gray’s base, supply Pauling’s team with weapons, and join the fight against Gray’s last robot army.
Australium chase
Despite its rarity, there have been multiple large caches of Australium. Several parties are seeking the remaining caches; Gray Mann, to use its immense power and to fuel his Life Extender Machine, Charles Darling, to extend the lives of his collection of "last of their breeds", Helen, for reasons secret to even her closest associates, and at least one other unknown party who seems to be beating all of them to the caches.
The cache at Mann Co. Monkeynautics facilities was emptied before Gray Mann could locate it, with only a single bar of Australium and a lipstick-stained cigarette butt left behind. Darling’s and Pauling’s teams in Australia learn that the Australian supply at a Ayers Rock went missing a few months later. Pauling’s squad discovers that Sniper’s birth father, Bill-Bel, has wasted the entire New Zealand cache as paint for his failed spaceships. Sniper’s birth mother, Lar-Nah, escapes with the last spaceship, which is carrying the last Australium cache.
Team Fortress Classic
Meanwhile, in New Zealand, Sniper and the rest of Pauling's team meet Sniper's parents, who possess the remains of the Australium cache they are seeking. Urged by predictions of disaster from Sniper's father, the entire population of New Zealand relocated to underwater domes built on the ocean floor. The cost of this relocation bankrupted the entire country, leading Sniper's father to once again attempt to construct a rocket ship in order to depart for space. Unaware of Australium's properties, he has been painting his rockets with it. Sniper's mother, angered to find out that the disaster predicted by Sniper's father never came to pass, takes off in an escape rocket painted with the last of the Australium cache. The rocket blasts through the underwater dome surrounding the laboratory, causing water to rush in and begin to fill it. Sniper's mother is last seen drinking wine in her rocket ship, having successfully reached space, and his father borrows money from Sniper, then steals the team's submarine. Having found the Mann Co. cache emptied, Gray Mann hires the aging Team Fortress Classic mercenaries (minus their Medic, whose role is filled by the RED Medic of the modern team) to find the woman who took the Mann Co. Australium cache and recover it. The Classic mercenaries track and capture Pauling, five mercenaries, and Zhanna to New Zealand, killing Sniper and taking the rest of the team to Gray Mann's headquarters.
The TFC mercenaries interrogate Pauling and the mercenaries, attempting to find the location of the mysterious woman who has beaten them to every Australium cache thus far. TFC Heavy determines that Australium is the source of Mann’s longevity. He then betrays Gray Mann, ripping his spinal implant out forcefully and leaving him to die.
TFC vs TF2
The sharp fragments of Gray's shattered Life Extender Machine give Zhanna the means of escaping her handcuffs. The prisoners thereby begin their escape, killing TFC's Pyro, Spy, and Demoman. Medic revives Sniper. TFC Heavy unleashes Gray's blood-sucking robots on the escaped TF2 mercenaries. Toxic-blooded Demoman single-handedly fights off the blood-suckers while Medic revives Miss Pauling and the others. TFC Heavy throws the remainder of Gray's robot army at the unarmed mercenaries, who are then joined by Scout, Heavy, Saxton Hale, Maggie, Jerry, and a planeload of weapons.
The robots and remaining Classic mercenaries are eliminated; Classic Heavy being defeated by Heavy and Medic, with some grudging intervention from the Devil. However, the fate of the Classic TFC Engineer, assumedly killed by Spy, is unconfirmed. The Spy was seen disguised as Fred when confronting TFC Sniper, likely confirming he killed him shortly before the interaction.
After learning that Soldier had inadvertently unearthed a large cache of Australium in his cave, the mercenaries and Miss Pauling discovered the Administrator with the barely-living body of Zepheniah Mann hooked up to a life extension machine, which she had been using to force him to watch the endless conflict between his sons. Miss Pauling chooses not to reveal the Australium to the Administrator, and both she and Zepheniah age to dust as their life extension machines shut down. Following Engineer's advice, Miss Pauling would dispose of the remaining Australium in an ocean trench to ensure that it could never be abused again.
Saxton Hale would go on to retake Mann Co. from Olivia, who remained employed there.
1979
Scout would go on to marry three times after suing the city of Teufort for workplace injury damages, eventually becoming a single father of four. Soldier would have two children with Zhanna (General Patton Doe and Georgina Washington Doe). They break Merasmus out of prison, who was framed for the murder of Tom Jones. Due to a debt owed to the Korean mafia, Merasmus would end up being tortured to death but is appeased after Soldier allows him to haunt a brick in his pants, together with the ghost of Tom Jones.
Saxton Hale became discontent with his role as Mann Co. CEO, and Olivia similarly came to hate both being her father's pawn and having to sell guns to idiotic mercenaries. Hale resolves both problems by firing Olivia and resigning, entrusting Mann Co. to Mr. Reddy and Mr. Bidwell so he can return to his life of adventure and Olivia can choose to live however she pleases.
Now
After resigning, now-elderly Saxton Hale and Maggie are found beating up exotic animals again. They are cornered on a cliff, with a large pack of cheetahs surrounding them.
Mysteries
The Pyro's identity
- "He's not here, is she?" — The Scout (Meet the Pyro)
The identity of the Pyro has been the subject of much Community debate since the game's release. Meet the Pyro demonstrated how the Pyro interprets the world around itself and its actions with a childlike glee, and Miss Pauling speaks to Pyro as to a child. There is no definite proof about the Pyro's gender or history despite popular speculation by the Community and references to the question in Comics and Movies.
The Administrator's goals
- "I know exactly what she could do with that kind of bower. And I'll be right there with her when she does it, ...." — Miss Pauling (Old Wounds)
The hidden pages and comics of Team Fortress 2 bring to light that the "Administrator" has been stockpiling the world's Australium supply for 150 years in order to settle an old score. Women, perhaps Helen herself, or bearing a familial resemblance have been by various accounts charged with keeping Zepheniah Mann's Australium away from Gray Mann, stockpiling the largest supply of Australium in the world, or completely running out of her life extending supply. While her true goal has been revealed to be to ensure that Redmond and Blutarch would keep fighting forever (a plan she had begun while she was still their governess) as Zepheniah is forced to watch, she herself can no longer remember why she wanted to do it, leaving her motives an unsolvable mystery.
The Scout's parentage
- "Hey Spy. Pauling. I took care of that DNA test for you. You owe me one ...." — Miss Pauling (Gun Mettle Campaign)
With the introduction of RED Spy's romantic interest in BLU Scout's Mother came suggestions that Spy is Scout's biological father. Several scenes or gags in the comics reference this suspicion. Certain comments made by other characters suggest they know or suspect something of a connection between Scout and Spy. A strongly emotional scene plays out after the battle with the last of Gray's robots; Spy comforts a dying Scout with an apparent fiction that Scout is the son of Tom Jones. Spy may be Scout's actual biological father, or he may have otherwise over time developed a deep fatherly concern and affection for Scout.
- In the image of the RED Team on the cover of Blood Money, the BLU Spy stands behind the Scout; while on the last page, the Spy holds a book, How to Beat a DNA Test.
- In comics and movies, Spy literally runs out on Scout; The Naked and the Dead page 133, Jungle Inferno 1:05.
- In Invasion, the Spy, disinterested in the movie, shows a disapproving glance at the Scout's immaturity.
- In The Days Have Worn Away, the Spy visits Scout's house. After Tanya, one of Scout's children, asks Spy who he is he hesitantly answers "I am your... father's friend. From work".
- Later in the comic, Spy is seen looking longingly at an image of Scout's mother.
The Medic's research
The Medic's Bavarian/Frankenstein/Reanimation/Xenotransplantation/Male pregnancy arc:
- Blood Bothers (As a proxy for the Medic, Archimedes flies around the Alamo; while inside, Blutarch proposes male pregnancy technology)
- Rottenburg/Monster Bash (Medic studies reanimation in Frankenstein's Bavaria)
- The Sound of Medicine (Medic perfects portable gib reanimation equipment)
- Old Wounds (Medic demonstrates perfected corpse reanimation through surgical xenotransplantation, TFC Heavy repeatedly calling the Medic "Frankenstein")
- The Naked and the Dead (Medic demonstrates perfected male pregnancy)
Others
- What was Silas Mann's role in the family events? Why did he become the Horseless Headless Horsemann? Why was this portrait in Mann Manor?
- Who is the missing person in the Family Portrait? Charles Darling's grandfather?
Detailed timeline
| Legend |
|---|
| Important event |
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| c. 4000BCE | Merasmus claims to have been born around this time. | Link |
| 17th Century | ||
| 1680 | Members of the DeGroot family begin production of Degroot's Rum that the Demoman would become a fan of centuries later. | Link |
| 18th Century | ||
| 1788, December 18th | Old Nick turns his boat around to conquer the South Pole while on a voyage to Australia. | Link |
| 1792 | Italian physicist Alessandro Volta invented the battery by mixing zinc, ammonium chloride and molten salt together. | Link |
| 19th Century | ||
| 1808 | The company that produces the scrumpy that the Demoman would become a fan of over a century later begins production of their product. | Link |
| 1814, June | An editorial cartoon is published in the Gentle Manne's Monthly entitled "An Editorial Cartoon of Some Insighte". | Link |
| circa 1822 | A woman, by some accounts, the Administrator, begins acquiring the world's largest supply of Australium. | Link, Link |
| 1822, September 2nd | Redmond, Blutarch and Gray Mann are born. Of the three, Gray was "absconded with by that scourge of London, the Eagle". | Link |
| 1847 | Claude Huggins founded the town of Hugginsville on the site of his wife's bear mauling death, renaming it this year to Two Farts, then later to Teufort. | Link |
| 1849 | Gray Mann resurfaces this year and threatens to blackmail Zepheniah Mann for all his "miracle gravel" (Australium). | Link |
| 1850 | The last will and testament of Zepheniah Mann is written and enacted. Mann bequeaths his cache of "miracle gravel" to his maidservant, Elizabeth. |
Link |
| 1850 | Australia becomes the world's most advanced country. | Link, Link |
| 1857 | Abraham Lincoln invents stairs, replacing rocket jumping. | Link |
| 1861, August 21th | Redmond and Blutarch Mann sell their gravel mine to Barnabas Hale for 5 cents. Hale then turns it into a coal mine promising jobs for the surrounding region. | Link |
| 1862, August 5th | Scientists in Australia "nervously assure the world" that there is "No gold after all..." Gold prospectors turn gaze to Canada. | Link, Link |
| 1865 | Abraham Lincoln holds his Second Inaugural Address, stating "I say this to you with unvarnished factualism of plain talk: I love Arena Mode." | Link |
| 1865, April 20th | The War Department publishes a wanted poster for John "Tower of Hats" Booth for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. | Link |
| 1869 | Shiny's Bullion is established. | Link |
| 1880 | The woman who in 10 years will convince Radigan Conagher to build an additional Life Extender Machine begins her search for Australium. | Link |
| 1890 | Blutarch Mann commissions Radigan Conagher to build a Life Extender Machine. | Link |
| 1890 | A woman of similar appearance to Elizabeth 40 years earlier requests Conagher to build a Life Extender Machine for Redmond Mann as well. | Link |
| 1890 | Biggs starts producing steel rods. | Link |
| 1894, July 17th | Radigan Conagher finishes building a Life Extender Machine for Blutarch Mann. | Link |
| 1894, August 3rd | Radigan Conagher finishes another Life Extender Machine for Redmond Mann as well. | Link |
| Unknown year, April 14th | Radigan Conagher finishes a third Life Extender Machine (for an undisclosed party). | Link |
| 1895, January 25th | "Hills Discovered!" The Here's Some News, Mate! newspaper runs a story about Australia stating "Mysterious new geographic lumps confound men of Australian science". | Link |
| 1895, March 6th | "War, Mate!" Two months later, the king of Australia declares war on hills stating "There will be time to study these so-called hills after they are dead". | Link |
| 1895, April 5th | "King Conquers Hill!" It is reported by the Here's Some News, Mate! newspaper that the "Coward Mound Surrendered Without a Fight". | Link |
| 20th Century | ||
| 1900, January 23rd | "Mann Co. invents 'ro-bot'." It is revealed by an Australian newspaper that Mann Co., an Australian weapons giant, has invented the "robot". In the article, Mann Co. officials attempt to assure public concerns over their 'ro-bot' by stating that "These automatons will only be used for violence". | Link |
| 1900 | Australia tries to colonize space by this time. They seem to have failed. | Link |
| 1901 | Newell and Sons debuts a "turnless" board game - Teams and Fortresses 2 - with explosive "real-time" gameplay. | Link |
| 1907, June 15th | Mann Co. wins safest workplace in Badlands. | Link |
| 1910, January 24th | Mann Co. wins their bid to be the sole munitions supplier to Reliable Excavation and Demolition and Builder's League United mercenaries. | Link |
| 1915, August 13th | A mineshaft collapses on Bilious Hale and his employees, but Bilious Hale punches his way out saving himself and his surviving employees. 14 die from cave-in and punch-related injuries. | Link |
| 1921 | Franklin D. Roosevelt loses both of his legs while rocket jumping. As a result, he perfects the modern staircase. | Link |
| 1921 | Bilious Hale, eager to re-ignite the nation's waning interest in coal, introduces the steam-powered hat at the Paris World Fashion Expo. | Link |
| 1922, March 13th | Bilious Hale permanently halts production of all coal-powered weapons. | Link |
| 1922, March 13th | Mann Co. shuts down their dual coal mine and munitions factory after 50 years of operation, but preserves it as a museum of Mann Co. history. | Link |
| 1923 | Red Shed whiskey distilled in Tougaloo. | Link |
| 1930 | Team Fortress Classic takes place - Redmond and Blutarch Mann hire the Classic Mercs to battle in the Gravel Wars. Bilious Hale supplies them with weapons and ammunition. | Link |
| 1932 | American soft drink magnate Theophilus Bonk added sugar to the same mixture as the first set of batteries, creating Bonk! Cola. | Link |
| 1932 | New Zealand is encapsulated in a dome and sunk to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. | Link |
| 1937 | Redstone Cargo is established. | Link |
| 1939, September 1st | World War II begins. Though he wanted desperately to fight in World War II, the Soldier was rejected from every branch of the U.S. military. Undaunted, he bought his own ticket to Europe. After arriving and finally locating Poland, the Soldier taught himself how to load and fire a variety of weapons before embarking on a Nazi killing spree for which he was awarded several medals that he designed and made himself. | Link |
| 1941, September | The Heavy's father, a counter-revolutionary, is killed. The Heavy and his family are deported to a North Siberian gulag. | Link |
| 1941, December | The North Siberian gulag burns to the ground with all its guards tortured to death and all prisoners escape, including the Heavy and his family. | Link |
| 1942 | New Zealander infant Mun-Dee accidentally breaks a hole in his country's underwater dome while flying away in a rocketship, leaving his parents the only survivors. The rocket crashes in Australia, where the baby is raised by a local couple, growing up to become the Sniper. | Link |
| 1945, September 2nd | World War II ends. | |
| 1945 | Jeremy, the Scout, is born in or around this year. | Link |
| 1949 | The Soldier ends his Nazi killing spree in Poland upon hearing that World War II had already ended in 1945. | Link |
| 1957 | While Saxton Hale and Margret are beating panthers to death, Charles Darling absconds with the panthers to put them in his new animal dungeon. | Link |
| 1959 | Primaprime produces series of instructional films. | Link |
| Early 1960s | Saxton Hale's Barbershop Action debuts in the U.S. It is followed by ancillary titles Saxton Hale's Barbershop Romance and Haircut Horrors Starring Saxton Hale's Ghost. | Link |
| 1961 | Saxton Hale's Thrilling Tales first arrives on newsstands. | Link |
| 1962 | Saxton Hale's Jungle Brawl debuts in the U.S. | Link |
| 1962 | Margret's husband Roger's funeral is held. A giant snapping turtle attacks and Saxton Hale promptly strangles it with his suit jacket. | Link |
| 1962 | Mayor Mike starts making Trevor act like an Italian Stereotype. | Link |
| 1962 | The alcoholic Demoman's body begins to scrounge most of its nutrients from grain alcohol and aspirin. | Link |
| 1963 | Only four items are being produced for the elderly: hats, meat, caskets, and Saxton Hale's Mildly Thrilling Tales. Saxton Hale Visits His Mother Monthly and Soothing Stories of Familiar Things soon follow. | Link |
| 1964, March | The first, and possibly only, issue of Saxton Hale's Mail Storm is published. | Link |
| 1965 | The Engineer creates several mechanical contraptions, including the Sentry Gun, while under contract with TF Industries. | Link |
| 1968 | Camp Saxton established; does not stay open very long. | Link |
| 1968 | Boy's Adventure Starring Saxton Hale comes under fire from the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Pressured by the Senate, Mann Co. changes the title to Girl's Adventure Starring Saxton Hale. | Link |
| Gravel War | ||
| 1968, June | The Gravel War - the main setting for Team Fortress 2. | Link |
| 1969, August | Saxton Hale firebombs Woodstock from a helicopter due to a longtime feud with hippies. | Link |
| 1971 | In the Teufort Library, microfiche genealogy records are destroyed "for no reason", leaving only paper originals. | Link |
| 1971 | Saxton Hale's Jungle Brawl ends publication. | Link |
| 1971 | The RED team steals an intelligence briefcase from BLU, the Engineer does experiments with teleporting bread, and the RED team must fight against a large bread monster with the help of Miss Pauling. | Link |
| 1971, 1 day | Gray Mann assassinates Redmond and Blutarch Mann to gain control of their respective corporations. This marks the end of The Gravel War. | Link |
| 1971, that evening/night | The ghosts of Redmond and Blutarch Mann enlist the final services of their mercenaries, each team to carry the other brother's body to Hell. | Link |
| Robot War | ||
| 1971, next day | Saxton Hale fights and captures the last surviving Yeti. Catching wind of Gray Mann's plans to use an army of robots to gain control of Mann Co., Saxton re-hires both RED and BLU unemployed mercenary teams to protect his company and kill robots without pay. | Link Link |
| 1971 | The Medic returns to his home country, studying and perfecting reanimation and male pregnancy. | Link, Link |
| 1971 | Voodoo-Cursed Items are reported stolen from the Gravelpit Community College. | Link |
| 1971 | The Medic surgically added the eight souls of his teammates to himself. | Link |
| 1971, October 29th | Merasmus the Magician attends WizardCon MCLVI as a guest speaker, giving a two-hour talk titled "Living with a Non-Wizard". | Link |
| 1971, October 30th | Merasmus returns from WizardCon to find that his castle has been made into the John Doe Raccoon Sanctuary, for which his ex-roommate, the RED Soldier, was appointed park ranger. Being evicted from his own home as a result, and Soldier gaining residence in the castle, Merasmus snaps and transforms into a powerful ghost version of himself, vowing to kill everyone the Soldier cares about. | Link |
| 1971, December | In the midst of the Robot War, Miss Pauling and the mercenaries struggle to defend Mann Co.'s sprawling domain. The Soldier reveals that he is able to infiltrate Gray Gravel Co. and learn their battle plans by wearing a cardboard robot costume. Wearing more of the same, Miss Pauling, Soldier, and Heavy infiltrate the base together a week later, witnessing the unveiling of the Mecha-Engineer. | Link |
| 1971 | Saxton Hale kills the steroid-enhanced Yeti with his bare hands at Yeti Park. | Link |
| Australium Chase | ||
| 1972, Takeover (first half of year) |
Gray Mann surrenders to Saxton Hale, ceasing all fighting. Olivia Mann, at that moment CEO of Gray Gravel Co., invokes the Mann Co. Challenge, winning the challenge for lack of any Mann Co. CEO willing to fight her for the company. Olivia immediately transfers the Mann Co. acquisition to her father Gray Mann, who then fires the mercs. | Link |
| 1972, immediately after | Administrator, hearing the news of Gray Mann's takeover of Mann Co., goes into hiding, ordering her assistant Miss Pauling to do the same. | Link |
| 1972, the following two weeks | Soldier is evicted from the Raccoon Sanctuary. Having broken both arms helping Soldier move, Scout gets the Spy to help him recover his savings from the Teufort Bank's vault, where the two are arrested for the destruction of Teufort. |
Link |
| 1972, September 7th | Date of mug shot of Spy and Scout (arms healed). | Link |
| 1972, six months after Takeover, before the Trial at Teufort |
Miss Pauling, under orders from Administrator, begins to reassemble the Mercs, recovering Soldier from Hollywood, Pyro from Frontier, and Demoman from his Badlands home. Gray and Olivia finally manage to find Hale's secret Australium stockpile, only to discover that it had already been taken. |
Link |
| 1972, before the Trial at Teufort | Soldier murders Tom Jones in his own home. Merasmus, who was Tom Jones' roommate, gets charged for the murder. Merasmus is sentenced to jail. | Link |
| 1972, around the time of the trial | Saxton Hale is released from the Millhaven Ultra Prison for Dangerous Men, held there for burning down most of Charles Darling's zoo months earlier. Margret, an old friend, takes Saxton to meet with Darling. Darling recruits Hale to recover the Australium (to prolong the lives of his "almost extinct" animals), presumed stolen by the Administrator. | Link |
| 1972, Trial at Teufort (second half of year) |
Soldier and Demoman attempt to free Scout and Spy from their trial, but are exposed, and all four are sentenced to hang. Miss Pauling saves the mercenaries with a simple civics lesson given to the lead-poisoned populace. Miss Pauling destroys original paper 1850 birth records at the Teufort Library, one remaining fragment bears the name Helen. |
Link, Link |
| 1972, Early December a week after the trial |
Scout, Soldier, and Pyro find Heavy with his family in the Dzhugdzhur Mountains of Siberia. Learning his sisters had killed the men that had been sent to kill them, Heavy returns to America with his mother and sisters; Zhanna joins the team, becoming Soldier's fiance. Gray and Olivia discover Pauling has burned the 1850 birth records a week ahead of them. |
Link |
| 1972, December | The Team Fortress Classic team is sent by Gray Mann to hunt the rebuilding Team Fortress 2 team. | Link |
| 1972, weeks later Australia |
While securing a small submarine, Spy, Soldier, and Zhanna discover that the Australians have lost their famous vitality. Heavy and Scout encounter Saxton and Maggie at Ayers Rock and discover that the secret Australium mine has suddenly played out. Demoman and Miss Pauling learn that Sniper's adoptive parents died at about the time of Gray's acquisition of Mann Co., incidentally leading him to learn of his birth parents. |
Link |
| 1972, later New Zealand |
Miss Pauling's squad finds Sniper's birth parents in the flooded remains of undersea New Zealand. Sniper's mother escapes to space with the last of the Australium that Miss Pauling could possibly find, flooding the remainder of New Zealand. The Classic mercenaries arrive at New Zealand with the TF2 Medic, killing Sniper, and capturing the others. |
Link |
| 1972, elsewhere | TF2 Engineer has been maintaining the Life Extender Machines of an elderly woman in 19th century attire, resembling Helen, but extremely aged, who, like Gray Mann, is running out of Australium. | Link |
| 1972, "at least six hours" later | The Classic team interrogates their captives at Gray Mann's island base. Medic performs perfected reanimation on Sniper. Classic Heavy rips out Gray's Life Extender Machine for himself and his aging team. The TF2 team escapes, killing three Classic mercenaries, but are overcome by blood-sucking robots. |
Link |
| 1972, an hour later | Pauling's team is saved by Demoman's resistance to the blood-sucking robots and by resuscitation by Medic. They are joined by parachuting Heavy and Scout, only to be surrounded, unarmed, by the final wave of the remaining robot army. Resupplied and reinforced by Saxton, Mags, and Jerry, the team destroys all robots and kill all the remaining TFC mercenaries except for their Engineer. TF2 Engineer's client uses up the remainder of her Australium in one go, expecting then to survive only an hour more, at most. |
Link |
| 1978 | School in Teufort starts after being cancelled for 6 years. | Link |
| 1987, December 4th | According to God himself, Scout dies. | Link |
| 21st Century | ||
| 2022 | The lease for Teufort's Federal Pedophile Sanctuary expires. | Link |
| 71st Century | ||
| 7039 | Saxton Hale's ownership rights of the Sniper's likeness expire. | Link |
Alternate universe/spin-off timeline
Note: Events in this timeline are not considered canon. [3]
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1972 | Gray Mann, on the verge of bankruptcy, reprograms his robot army to, instead of trying to kill the mercs, sell them robot themed hats to recoup his losses and to edge-in on Mann Co.'s ever growing lucrative hat sales revenue. | Link |
| 1996 | Kisses von Butternubs, a Pomeranian dog in a sweater, is elected president of the United States of America by popular vote. | Link |
| 1999 | Future Dell Conagher (Engineer), now very old (but very muscular and long bearded) and his arm replaced with a cybernetic one, and Pyro, who is now a floating head in a bubble, travel back in time to 1972, very briefly, to warn the mercenaries not to open Gray Mann's robocrates to prevent the impending Hat Wars of the 1990s, before having to return to 1999. | Link |
Sources
- ↑ Loose Canon, page 8.
- ↑ Loose Canon, page 5.
- ↑ KritzKast interview with Valve's Andrew Wilson. 'Anything canon should come from the team here; we view the comic as a possible alternate universe. ... While we don’t want too many people steering the canon for TF, we love to see where the characters are taken.' "KritzKast interviews Robotic Boogaloo." May 26, 2013 (archived).
