Occam's Sponge: Mapping the Timelines of the Command and Conquer Canon

[@pyroshilov8474]

Now my head hurts... this is an incredibly impressive put together vid both visually and content-wise. the idea all of this was compiled in 8 months is absolutely extraordinary. good job man

[@IctivGoka]

Thank you! I'm always very grateful to see people watch the whole thing!

[@pyroshilov8474]

@@IctivGoka honestly more people should see it. My one takeaway from this which i adore is the idea where Yuri gets catapulted back in time and throughout the eras, becomes another certain bearded bald leader of sorts... that bit just *chef kiss*

[@epicguyfromepicland]

Kane lives!!! As a nod fan I gotta say the idea of Kane being behind everything and being right all along is both terrifying and cool as hell. Props.

[@IctivGoka]

It's actually a running gag in tabletop RPGs I run that either through timeline shennanigans or Lands of Lore multiverse logic (Watch No Strings Prd's CABAL video if you don't know what I mean) somehow everything is always Kane's fault if you go back far enough.

[@d3punkt5]

Gosh, having grown up with the games, hearing that Tiberian Dawn is set in 2020 feels so wrong. But I forgot what a mess of things Renegade made out of the lore. So with that said, stellar work on this! Very nice attempt at connecting all the strings between the games - generals included. (Did not expect that ending idea!)

[@Grizabeebles]

So just today I found out about the Nod Temple level in game "Lands of Lore III" put out by Westwood Studios. That connection made *a bunch* of dangling plot threads in C&C make sense. In the Lands of Lore series there is something called "The Shining Path" that allows travel to other universes. It looks somewhat similar to the Scrin portal in the final cutscene of C&C4. By the same token, the Tacitus could potentially be a magic item from the Lands of Lore universe Kain could gain access to once he "ascends" in C&C4. The first Lands of Lore game involved a quest to find a two-part magic artifact called "The Whole Truth". Still, the idea of Kane being a bootstrap paradox caused by the proliferation of time travel across many different universes is probably the best explanation we're going to get. It puts him in the same realm as the likes of Leto Atreides II and Eobard Thawn.

[@IctivGoka]

Honestly, my personal explanation for Kane is a bit of a mix of what's in the video, and also Lands of Lore. I think it makes the most sense to imagine Kane is some kind of planeswalker, or as you said, someone who walks 'the shining path'. Considering Lands of Lore III came out just before Tiberian Sun, I think the Nod ending of that game might have been hinting at something similar as well, with Kane having put in motion what he needed to happen on Earth, and then going away to another world so he's not there for the effects of the world altering missile, possibly returning later.

[@Grizabeebles]

@@IctivGoka -- My personal take on the Scrin is that they're not aliens from deep space, but a species which evolved in the timeline where Kain successfully launched the World Altering Missile. In turn, the Scrin would use time travel to seed alternate timelines with Tiberium, along the way building and losing the critical things Kain needed for his plans.

[@jojojojo4332]

the fact you mention atreides is amusing. because your probably right. after all was it not the games they made before starting on command and conquer

[@videocrowsnest5251]

Returning to this one, here is some more fun food for thought. As we know, Kane lives. It's one of the fundamental rules of the Command and conquer (at least tiberian) games that he does. Now, going with the Occam's sponge as how we approach this, I would ask what is the specific nature of Kane's ability to tell the future? Considering how via time travel timelines can merge, it stands to reason if not enough caution is taken (see: chrono vortexes), they can also be damaged, or even for all effects and purposes destroyed. What happens to the immortal Kane if the very timeline they are inhabiting suddenly is destroyed around them? Or a merge occurs, touching upon again that whole "what happens to the second copies of people" topic? I personally would like to drive this particular bike (doing wheelies along the way) in the direction that the very source of Kans ability to predict the future/to have visions pertains to either merging timelines, or timeline collapses leading to a kind of merge happening where any knowledge, memories, or information a version of Kane would have known is granted to the Kane present. It would also help shed a bit of light on why Kane is at times so very unstable (and willing to do anything to stop it), as even to an anomalous human like him, to become aware of collapsing timelines by proxy of inheriting information - meaning in essence to live through it- would be very hard to handle.

[@trueredpanda1538]

We know for a fact that Kane had the Tacitus before soviet vs allies inn red alert. That was mentioned by one of the developers at some point. However, we never had an explonation to how he read it, or how he lost it, so I think if they were to continue the franchise, we would be explained this. Also, I had a theory back when I was youmger that all the timelines would be merged. So essentily, let's say red alert, generals and tiberian timelines was 3 different roads it could take. (More inn red alert do to more time machine shenanigans) the factions of different timelines would essentily have to face each other. GDI, Nod, Allies, Soviet, Empire of the rising sun, Yuri, GLA, China and USA(maybe scrin as well). Also, while tiberium being rampant. I did not think USA would break from GDI, but that the whole scenario would be 1 big time paradox. Allies, USA and GDI could team upp while Nod could make some deals with GLA and soviet for instance. Then again, I would love to have a Forgotten army (tiberian mutants) just because we know we were suppose to get them inn tib war 3 or kanes wrath.

[@videocrowsnest5251]

@@trueredpanda1538 Interesting detail that. It really makes no sense for Kane to just lose the Tacitus if he had it, as nobody knew about the thing. I doubt he woulda just forgot to pack it into his luggage one day and someone stole it. It also is even more confusing than how it would have got divided all around the world into fragments. Not to mention as he couldn't read it until Tratos/CABAL were things, so for all purposes, he just had a magic glowing space orb in his pocket that one day he just somehow misplaced? I don't really buy it. Not unless we really get into some time travel/paradox/teleportation hijinks. As this was said by a developer, I'd consider it a bit of a dubious source too. One of those ideas that never made it into the implementation phase, and thus is really low on its power to be taken as cannon. As for the Forgotten: poor guys. They were supposed to be a faction in Tib Sun too (see: the infantry units you gain access to in some missions which are the only surviving bits of their faction), but got axes early on in development. They also were all but dropped in Tib wars/Kane's wrath, with only a few mentions and mutant marauders about. So not only are they dying from Tib infection, forces to live in the Red Zone hellscapes, shunned by the rest of humanity, and facing a lot of challenges. Even the developers of the games refuse to do anything but mention them as suffering in the long term. When they aren't pawns in the bloody chess game between GDI and Nod, that is. Talk about getting the short end of the stick. Post-Tratos it feels like they outlived their narrative purpose as far as the story is considered, and were relegated to the same box as other (very cool) Tiberian wildlife: expendable, sometimes brought up, but ultimately absent.

[@trueredpanda1538]

@@videocrowsnest5251 I actully do think we did get an explonation why the tacitus was inn splinters. I think it was inn one of the hand manuals of one of the games. I don't really remember the explonation, but I do remember it being far fetched that the splinters made it around the world like it did, like someone would stumble upon 1 shard and be like "This looks intresting" and just left the other shards where they were destroyed. However, the tacitus couls be a good plot point to explain how Kane could forsee tiberium, but we would need explonation on how he found that spesific intel from it. Beside, I do think I heard someone else mention he had that info from the tacitus. Knowing Kane, he was probably betrayed by someone who stole the Tacitus and broke it upp inn pieces or something like that however. He has bad decisions on who he consider friends, that is shown time and time again inn the tiberium games.

[@videocrowsnest5251]

@@trueredpanda1538 I don't ever recall reading such a segment. You don't happen to recall which one it is? I have the Tib sun/Firestorm manuals, but do not recall reading anything about such an explanation. Another explanation for Kane being able to foresee Tiberium is he clearly has had some contact with the species we know as the Scrin. "This being's genetic data already exists in the data core....composition is unknown" - Overseer to Foreman 51 upon scouring the blast site to find footage of Kane talking to the Nod commander circa Tib Wars. I personally subscribe to the idea of Kane being an ancient human of some description, though obviously an anomalous one. This first contact with who we call the Scrin could have led him to develop his anomalous properties, as alien species have been coming and going to Earth for a long while. It's likely this is where a lot of Kane's otherworldly information comes from. The Tacitus is merely a massive repository of Data. One hard to translate: GDI got millions of terabytes worth of data from it at the end of Firestorm. Without advanced computers and machines, getting anything useful from it would be very difficult as it is not magic - it's very advanced data storage tech ala a futuristic USB stick. Much like a USB stick won't tell you anything without a machine to plug it into, until such a machine was built, it would have been just Kane's magic glowing orb. As keep in mind, Kane could not read it on his own. For that, he needed Tratos/CABAL (later LEGION) - the only two beings who could decipher it. If he could read it on his own, immortal him would just study it in peace and not bother with machines or traitorous mutants. He has endless time, after all. It does really ask the question of where the Tacitus was before Tib Sun era, as it seems to have at one point been lost to Kane - likely, as you say, through treachery and betrayal - but I can't imagine he wouldn't keep extremely close tabs on such a vital piece of the puzzle. There is also a mystery element here: Circa Tib Sun, the Tacitus was whole. Kane had full access to it. Then somehow during Firestorm it got splintered, and its pieces scattered: One ended up in the hands of Mutants, who likely stole it. But the piece that ended up in the hands of the cult in Bolivia makes no real sense, as they don't seem to be Nod aligned. Their compound had not a single shred of Nod tech or iconography, and even if they split off from the Brotherhood they wouldn't just ditch useful tech that helps them survive in that massive Red Zone. Considering CABAL, who needed to play both sides of Nod and GDI to get it, had no idea where all the pieces were this would point to the Tacitus being split after CABAL was knocked offline. Meaning the only possible time for the Tacitus to be split into pieces from the whole thing would be after Kane was "killed", CABAL was turned off (so he couldn't monitor its movements), and GDI had control of the region. Even if they were being harassed by guerilla fighters, I am extremely doubtful they would permit mutants to make off with a piece (which turned out to be fake anyways), and a crazy cult to take another. To steal one would take an operation. Nod being in disarray, could not execute it. So how did the Tacitus then get split? Kane didn't do it. CABAL didn't do it. GDI didn't even know about it. A random cult sure as heck didn't do it. Yet it still happened. Very, very odd.

[@videocrowsnest5251]

I completely forgot about Tratos actually having the Tacitus before Kane. So the Tacitus was first held by Tratos, then Kane, then the whole Firestorm crisis thing happened, and then it went to GDI.

[@SuperBliter23123]

Oh my god what a great video. Sad to See that this was your last upload. Great production value, great Editing and wonderful ideas! I hope you decide to start uploading again! I really enjoyed this Video!

[@IctivGoka]

Thanks! I actually have an idea for a video I wanted to do since this was done, namely an expansion on the idea portrayed at the very end of the video, explaining how the Fallout universe can (and is really fun to) be explained as a rogue Command and Conquer timeline where simply the meteor didn't land. Just been a bit busy with a couple of things like DM-ing a long running D&D game and a large fan project unrelated to this unde a different name. I do keep thinking back on that, so we'll see if I have the time in the future. Thanks a lot for the kind words and for watching the video!

[@SuperBliter23123]

@@IctivGoka Don't stress yourself. But when you find time please do work on that video. I will for sure watch it. Looking forward to good content!!

[@NoStringsPrd]

Sorry for taking so long to get to this! Since it's a beast of a video I'll note down my thoughts as we go; Great intro, with the slow, dramatic build and Einstein's narration over the top! I appreciate the way you definied Occam's Razor BTW as 'requiring the fewest assumptions'. A common misconception is that it means 'the simplest explanation is often the right one'. Occam's Razor is about not multiplying entities beyond necessity, which I think is your whole point! I like that you added this "let's go with Occam's Sponge" right at the start; as you say I'm more on the side of the Razor in my interpretation, but this is a really fun walk through an enjoyably excessive interpretation I'd generally disagree with Love the addition of a 'Now Playing' box! There's a lot of Scrin text throughout as well. I might have to go through and translate at some point I got to 5:42 then had to rewind to the start of this section, this info is *dense*! Love the extra info and quotes in the lower left at this point. 15:55 Caught the I AM reference, nice one I don't want to speak against the narrative you're weaving too much since we're both approaching the lore from different perspectives with different standards (and so a comparison of standards to reach agreement on which standard is better would be necessary first, but let's not get into that now), but since I very much skimmed the idea in my RA Chronology video you cited, I would like to elucidate a bit on why I go with Schrödinger's Kane; (I won't be linking sources since that'll take ages but let me know if you want a citation for anything specific) I would hold that Kane is absent from the Red Alert universe (beginning with RA2) and the Generals universe. Nothing Kane-, Nod-, Scrin- or Tiberium-related appears in those games, even in easter eggs or subtext. Red Alert 1, a game which leads to both TD and RA2 simultaneously is the only non-Tiberium universe game to involve Kane in any way. RA1 was originally designed such that both the Allied and Soviet campaigns, while following different paths, result in the same outcome; the Soviet Empire is defeated and we set up Tib Dawn. Then along comes RA2 which unambiguously follows RA1 Allies. This leaves the Soviet campaign as the one remaining campaign (in the same way that both GDI endings to TD could have been canon, but TS settles on the Ion Cannon ending). This works well since the Soviet campaign involved Kane and Nod, while the Allied campaign only makes an oblique reference to a Global Defense Agency (which probably also occurred in the Soviet campaign), and the apparent appearance of Kane in the footage you highlighted. So in the same way you set Red Alert 1 as the timeline division base at the core of the whole C&C chronology in this interpretation, I would assert Kane as being the entity that divides it. If The Soviet campaign leads to the Tib universe (and both include Kane), and the Allied campaign leads to the Red Alert universe (which doesn't contain Kane), then it would be Kane's existence which would decide the outcome of Red Alert 1. This makes Kane's only appearance in the Red Alert universe be the man in the hat behind Stalin, though since it's so unclear then in this timeline he could easily be a benign character also played by Joe Kucan. It wouldn't be the first non-Kane character Joe plays in C&C. So before 1924, we don't know which universe we're in; the one with Kane, or the one without. In the original Einstein's timeline, we don't know which it is either. We only know which we're in once Red Alert 1 begins. So I call this Schrödinger's Kane; until we observe the effects of his existence, we don't know which timeline we're in. Or in a more esoteric manner of speaking, he both does and doesn't exist, and the superposition collapses into one or the other timeline when Kane, or the effects of Kane's existence, are observed. This is in the same way that events in distant galaxies light-years away might not be determinable to have occurred before, after or simultaneously to events on Earth until the light reaches us. An event on Earth than happened 1000 years ago, and an event in a distant galaxy that also happened at the same time 1000 years ago, are interchangeable in the order of their occurrence until the events are causally linked (by light, I understand?). Maybe I'm talking bollocks, I'm referring to a talk by Prof Brian Cox, I can't quite remember which one or I'd link it, but that's how I understood it. Either way, I'm mainly using it as an analogy than literally. Point is, at the start of RA1, we don't know which timeline we're in until the effects of Kane's existence (including Nod, the attention of the Scrin to Earth and the incoming Tiberium meteor) are observed. Regarding how Stalin could have begun the invasion of Europe sans Kane's influence, the RA1 manual doesn't mention Kane, instead citing, "It came to Stalin in a series of dreams." RA2 affirms this to a degree. While Kane would have had the ability to be this influence, I reckon it's possible without his existence for the events of the Allied campaign to still have taken place. And finally, it was never Kane's desire to hold the Soviet Union, I'd agree that the idea was to weaken the Allied nations ahead of time, and that perhaps he was also after some political or technological assets, leading to how Nod was so well funded, connected and supplied by the arrival of Tiberium, or, perhaps more likely, the rise of the Soviets Empire was inevitable anyway (see Allied campaign where Kane doesn't exist) and he wanted to remove the Soviets from the picture as a potential threat to Nod. It's somewhat unclear as to his exact intent, and there was a thread on the C&C subreddit today about why he shot Nadia. "The Brotherhood is but a shadow of what it once was, but then that is how it should be" (or thereabouts) This took me a while so I'll have to resume at 25 minutes in later :)

[@IctivGoka]

Thanks a lot for this write up, and I'm looking forward to the continuation, if you feel like it! As I wrote elsewhere, I understand and appreciate your Schrödinger's Kane theory, it's simply a matter of taste that I want Kane to be this ever-present, rarely-seen figure of myth that exists in all of C&C canon, regardless of his confirmed presence. So just as a clarification for anyone reading this, my comment on it is not meant to be a claim that it's wrong, just that it doesn't fit how I prefer to view Kane. One thing I also mentioned elsewhere, that didn't make it into this video, but is spongey enough that maybe it should have, is C&C's connection to Lands of Lore. In all honesty, it could perfectly explain the Schrödinger's Kane phenomenon, if Kane isn't actually from Earth, but from The Lands. While with my model it wouldn't work, if the timeline splits would create full new timelines, forwards and back, then it could be reasoned that Kane, coming from The Lands, would have arrived specifically in the Tiberium universe's past, while not doing so in any other, as (barring any possible, later GDI Chronosphere shennaningans) there is only one of him at that time. It might even explain just what he was doing at the end of Tiberian Sun's Nod story, though that again is a very Spongey explanation.

[@ccghidorah1]

CnC 4: Einstein Fixes It. I've always headcanoned the events of CNC4 as the bad end for GDI's campaign in Tib Wars. Using the 2nd Liquid Tiberium bomb in the final mission instead of conventionally sieging the Scrin's base triggers a cascading effect for the spread of Tiberium. Good video, I can't wait to see Tib Fallout.

[@IctivGoka]

Cheers! I did feel a bit bad leaving C&C 4 out for a joke, but it fell into that category where I didn't really have enough of a connection to it to add an extra 10+ minutes of explanation on how it might make sense. Same reason why I skipped over the ordering of timelines in Red Alert 3, though there were some hints, as noted in the bottom left corner when I talked about that game. While personally, I treated the bad end of the GDI campaign as a sort of mission failure (similar to how in Red Alert 2, you even get a dedicated cutscene to having failed to stop one of the psychic weapons in an Allied campaign), and ignored it on that basis, if I ever revisit this with C&C4 and Renegade included, I'll give your idea some thought, as it's an interesting way to set up a more corrupt GDI that could work with Kane somewhere down the line. As a note, it might have been obvious when I whittled down the chronology at he end to "Only games developed by Westwood", that I originally only planned on covering those games, everything else tacked on.

[@MatthewPiercey]

Awesome video! I love it whenever someone reads between the lines, and uses everything at their disposal to make a coherent timeline out of seemingly-disparate pieces of media. Personally I think the C&C series hits just about all the boxes for me in terms of alternate histories, wacky battles, and refreshingly-sincere campiness. This was a blast to watch that really deserves more views. Thanks for putting all the effort and little references into this. Didn't expect the ending, but once I saw the year in the corner, it got me curious. And you actually went for it, bravo!

[@IctivGoka]

Thanks a lot, really appreciate the kind words and you watching all the way to the end!

[@ReviveHF]

At 53:28, this explained why the light tank in Red Alert 1 is represented with the Chinese Type 62 light tank. Type 62 might be the Battlemaster Tank in Generals. China was sided with the Allies against the Soviet in Red Alert 1 , then in Tiberian Dawn China officially sided with GDI and unofficially sided with Nod.

[@Commodore22345]

"China was sided with the Allies against the Soviet in Red Alert 1" No, they weren't. They had a common enemy in the Soviet Union, but there was no formal military, political or economic cooperation between the Allies and the Chinese during Red Alert 1. In fact, it's actually implied that the Chinese are already defeated by the time the war in Europe begins.

[@spartainwarrior6445]

i went in this with a migrane, i went out of this with a migrane, the question is if this video perpetuated the migrane or if it was always meant to happen... only time will tell.

[@vexspacey2644]

But what about when Primer Checkovo said 'This is my timeline' Doesn't that suggest, He somehow knows about the other soviet timelines at least?

[@IctivGoka]

He starts the story of Red Alert 3 by using a time machine to create an alterante timeline, so I think it's mainly just a reference to how he believes he 'owns' this entire reality because it's due to him that it was created. EDIT: And by due to him that "it" was created, I mean that regardless of if there were other timelines split after his own split, would have no known reason to be aware that he isn't in a timeline where the latest change was him creating it, so even if it's someone else's timeline, he'd think it is his.

[@venlil]

Considering the tech the allies have in uprising around time travel particularly being able to stop it for specific people in specific areas effectively controlling the flow of time could the allies not use that technology to theoretically create a bridge between timelines by making time flow not forward or backwards but sideways in a area creating a portal allowing for a crossover event between the command and conquer games

[@IctivGoka]

I'm not sure if you mean like a stable stargate sort of portal, since essentially, every time someone crosses it a new timeline would splits off at their destination, at which point it becomes a question of "which timeline does this portal even go to?" But one could work around that if the split of timelines are arcing off so shallow that they get merged with the one they split from almost immediatley. It could even add a bit of ominosity, where everyone in the world is very aware of someone having just arrived via a portal, because the vibration effect from the end of Allied Yuri's Revenge would take place essentially each time someone comes into the timeline and causes a merger. I could see it as a neat mechanic, where maps would be broken into multiple "layers" similar to how the Heroes of Might and Magic series often had overworld and underworld maps, which were connected by caves or portals. Essentially, one map would be in one timeline, the other in another, and you could move units between maps by sending them through the portal. However, every time a unit crosses, the world shakes a bit, and the more units cross, the greater the shake becomes until beyond a certain point there is the chance for Red Alert 1 style time anomalies to spawn, as the timeline can't handle all the mergers and vortexes or worse begin to open!

[@kasrkin100]

How about the Renegade 2 concept to connection toward Tiberium timeline.

[@IctivGoka]

Sadly, I don't know much about Renegade 2's plans, but having only seen the concept art, I think it could have fit in, if the story ended up being a time travel plot. As outlandish a concept as it would be, I'd love a Renegade game, where the story involves Havoc having to go full TimeShift (the game), chasing after a Nod agent who obtained an experimental Tiberium timeline version of the Chrono Legionary armor, and they end up extending their chase through different C&C timelines.

[@peterhellman4271]

@@IctivGoka are you implying that the master is kane

[@IctivGoka]

@@peterhellman4271 Not exactly, though close-ish. In Fallout 1 and 2, the Master is kind of a weird figure in terms of morality. The guy was best friends with basically the most morally righteous guy in the games (Harold), spent his days as a doctor healing people in one of the most dangerous spots in the wasteland, went on an unambigous suicide mission on the off-chance of maybe finding a way to stop the Super Mutants and save some lives in doing so, and on top of that, if he's actually convinced that his 'Master Plan' of evolving humans into a better version of themselves cannot work, he does everything within his power to immediately eliminate everything he has built to try and save the wasteland from his own creation. The only thing wrong you can nail on him before being semi-driven mad by the FEV is that he was accused of murdering someone in Vault 8, but considering the way Vault 8 (Vault City) is protrayed, there could both be some good explanation for what happened, and it's even possible the whole thing was made up for political reasons. I say this, because considering all that, it really wouldn't make any sense for the Master to create something like the Chruch of the Unity... Which is why he actually canonically didn't do it. The Church of the Unity wasn't actually the Master's idea. He didn't decide to create a shadow organization that goes around pretending to be doctors, while brainwashing people into the true faith of this unseen messianic figure in an effort to have people give themselves to the Super Mutant process themselves. In Fallout 1, you can find out that literally all of this elaborate and bizarrely well organized church was the brainchild of some random raider asshole who used to belong to a different, weird, isolationist cult before just approaching the Master and convincing them that they could make the Master's plan work better by creating this Church of the Unity... A church which by the way has giant monitors in its headquarters doing the same big keyword graphics that the Nod HQ from C&C 2 has going on. To my thinking, it would make way more sense if Morpheus (the random raider I mentioned who organized the entire church) was an agent of Nod, sent to the Master by Kane, to manipulate the Master into becoming essentially a CABAL like entity that slowly Kane can take control of as Morpheus manipulates the Master further and further away from his initial intentions of simply ensuring a better tomorrow for humanity, and deeper into the cultist delusion. I keep calling the church the Chruch of the Unity because that is basically what it is, but its official name is actually "Children of the Cathedral", which honestly even sounds like Brotherhood of Nod. If you add onto it how ambigious the Master's identity is kept in the way that the Children of the Cathedral talk about him, while canonically it's almost definitely because he's a mutant sludge, it would even make sense to interpret it as part of Kane's plan. If no one knows who or what the messiah is, then it is a vacant role he can easily slip into once the stage is set for him to make his debut.

[@christopherwall2121]

Considering everything, it is rather fitting that Yuri arrived from an alternate timeline in our world, wouldn't you say?

[@Xaoc2sqaure]

Dayum, just discovered this today. I searched around with the question if Generals could fit in the tiberium timeline, and happened upon this video. Probably have to give it another watch or two. Two thoughts I'm left with is. I'm not to happy with how generals only fits after the Soviet victory of RA1. Also, you didn't take account of the (probably) canon expansions of RA1. Or the mentions of (proto)GDI in the allied RA1 campaign. Second is, you probably could use the nod bad ending of tib sun as a confirmed chromosphere use. Bonus thought: In my head canon, the Nod ending and the GDI ending of Tiberian Dawn are both potentially canon. (Depending on which building you destroy😅). The white house and the big Ben both make appearances in later games, but Paris and Berlin do not, so that would potentially give you one less time travel to worry over.

[@IctivGoka]

Hm? I'm confused. In both versions I present, Generals takes place in a world separate from the Red Alert games, in the original timeline. Then again, this is a 90 something minute video, I might have said something confusing during that runtime that made you think the opposite. As for the Nod bad ending: I'm guessing you're referring to Kane peacing out, though it was really tough to really say what that would be. Even if that is Kane using the Chronosphere (perhaps to jump to after the Tiberium bomb explosion?), it didn't really play into the core of the video, of piecing what we already saw together. Plus, if I'm honest, I kind of prefer to think of Kane as some sort of planeswalker equivalent from Lands of Lore, which is another Westwood game series that ties into C&C in a very cheeky way I didn't really get into here. The both being canon thing... I might need to replay the games. I can't really think of anything off the top of my head that would prevent Kane from blowing up the Eiffel Tower, and THEN GDI defeating them. Worth considering. Also, thanks a lot for watchng and writing a comment, it's always appreciated!

[@CnCDune]

Is that Dune 2000 music playing in the background at times? I like the way you laid out the connection between Kane and Yuri. C&C Fallout; there's a nice idea for a C&C-themed shooter; Rengade X Firestorm kinda has you covered there...

[@IctivGoka]

Yes, I mixed in a bit of Dune 2000 music where it felt appropriate (musically. Dune isn't really in this chronology, though who knows, maybe one day I'll expand this to somehow squeeze that in too.) Also I meant to check out Renegade X for a while now, just never got the time. Where the Fallout connection comes from for me, is that the friends I made it for, as mentioned briefly in the creditsroll, are my players for a GURPS (sort of like Dungeons and Dragons) game I run, which on the surface was a Fallout sandbox, but under the hood as they eventually found out, was an alternate take of Fallout where all the weirdness and mysteries of that franchise are tied into and explained by yet another alternate timeline of Command and Conquer. Also, thanks a lot for the compliment! The Yuri/Kane implication is one of the things I feel less strongly about (as in, what Yuri might end up being), but I felt it's a fun little line of thought that would have been a shame to leave out.

[@videocrowsnest5251]

Regarding the idea of the timeline where Yuri ended up winning, and this is purely nothing more than fanfic...as ironically, could the timeline in question be. There is, of course, someone left even in a planet dominated entirely by Yuri, who could change things, and I think you will like it when I point it out. Depending on how the possibilities and timelines would hook up... As you said; Kane lives. Without followers to be sure, limiting how and what he can do, and I am certain Yuri would make it his top priority to capture and keep Kane contained, while also keeping any time machines under lock and key/destroy them. But imagine for a moment that the Yuri's domination timeline would be foiled by the most unlikely person ever: Kane. Who through some really mad gambits managed to evade Yuri, get his hand on a time machine, has enough information to use it to some extent, and thus ends up in a way saving the world by making sure Yuri will not win. It would certainly be ironic, at the very least, that Kane, who has again and again tried his hand at global domination for control of Tiberium, who has sown violence, war, conflict, manipulation, lies, and shook the very kingdoms of the earth itself to their core, with not a shred of care or worry for the billions that would die as he marched on his path to Command and Conquer, would end up being the one to save free thought itself in this particular timeline by being the only one left on Earth to use Einsteins time machine to undo Yuri's victory. Because if he who controls the past, commands the future, and he who commands the future has conquered the past, then certainly Kane, who is every bit as ambitious, cunning, megalomaniacal, and bent on getting his way than Yuri is, would not allow another to Command and Conquer thought, body, mind, and if he so desires: soul, as well as all of time, and every moment of history itself. And perhaps much more too, because ponder for a moment what would happen in this very timeline should Yuri's ambitions not be sated by the domination of one planet, with no one there to conveniently stop him, and he would look to the stars now with all this power, continuing to hone and harness it as Tiberium arrives on the day it was meant to. Only then to one day spot, or sense floating in the far edges of the solar system, a curious little signature belonging to a dormant transport ship of alien origin in waiting. A ship, that as it's being observed, is observing back. Think Yuri would pass out on the idea of expanding his domination to the cosmos, were it within his grasp? That he would not be drawn to the idea of truly ensuring that there is only one will in the universe itself? I could continue, but the reason I at the end here allowed myself to freely draw lines, and paint shapes in the holes of space and time left over by all this time traveling is to point out that Yuri's total domination of Earth could be the beginning of something much, much worse. As at this point, I must ponder the butterfly effect, which means even the smallest things can, and do have a very large knock on domino effect. So what happens when a megalomaniacal madman with mind control technology manages to oust an undying man with prophesies and visions of the future, and dominates an entire planet all for himself, waiting for more power to be dropped right onto his doorstep only to be added to his arsenal? Wouldn't the butterfly effect of something like this be tremendously more potent, as that of a single butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest to cause a hurricane in Japan? I will leave it here, but point to the fact that despite all of this, Kane lives, and were he to manage to undo the Yuri total domination timeline, even if it was for his own selfish ends, with only enough knowledge on the time machine to toss a shoe into the timeline to trip Yuri up at precisely the right moment, he might just have ended up doing something that exceeds even his wildest dreams, by saving an entire universes worth of free will. As I said earlier, the irony would be so very satisfying. And for this very reason, I think it's best to leave the forces of nature alone, for playing with them is never a good idea. Oh, and speaking of Yuri, I couldn't help but remember one little final detail, that is cannon to the games. See, in the Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge Soviet campaign there's that one mission, where it's revealed Yuri planned to after he had managed to dominate all of Earth to move to his estate on the moon. In the very compound, the Soviet Commander raids and raises to the ground after discovering Yuri's rocket at his Boomer Submarine base. Curious, is it not? Why would he leave the very place he now has total domination over? Certainly no one could betray him, as there would be only his will, and unless he was that afraid of Kane merely living that he wanted to be on the moon while Kane was locked up on Earth to ensure he was safe from him, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Unless, of course, Yuri was painfully aware of something soon to happen, that when it did happen it would be very hazardous to be around, and that this all was best observed from a distance, as he governed his new empire from a less...green, environment. Interesting little detail to think about, isn't it? Why would Yuri flee to the moon, if he indeed planned originally to do it AFTER he was victorious? Unless, of course, he wanted to ensure he was safe from the effects of Tiberium when that fateful meteor would come. Now there's some food for thought.

[@IctivGoka]

Of course, if we dial things forward, past Tiberium's arrival, Yuri would be safely hidden away on the Moon, possibly having made his base near undetectable by that time, as he continues to control all life on Earth from afar. Would Yuri do as Kane did? Trigger an erruption of Liquid Tiberium, to draw in the Scrin? After all, the Scrin too possess telepathic abilities of some degree. Would Yuri be so ambitious, as to reinforce his secret moon base into the world's greatest Psionic Amplifier, and then ambush the arriving Scrin Harvesters to hijack their neural link to high command and take control of the Scrin Empire itself? Of course, if we take everything I hinted at here into account, and Kane IS the Yuri that got thrown back during the Soviet Campaign's ending, then being left in that world, he would know Yuri's plan, but Yuri might not neccessarily realize Kane does. More than that, Kane might still possess the strength of will to combat or even overcome Yuri's own, if he was ever given access to Yuri's technology. Kane, even with Yuri hunting him, might just choose to lay low in wait, knowing full well what Yuri will try to pull in overtaking the Scrin, and at that time strike, forcefully linking himself into Yuri's mindcontrol network, to wrestle control from his alternate past self, after they had conquered the minds of the cosmos itself.

[@videocrowsnest5251]

@@IctivGoka The fun thing about all of this is there is such ample ground for speculation and pondering. It's such a shame EA has no interest in touching any of this fertile ground, because you could make such incredible media out of all of this, were it done with an understanding and attention to details to things at large. Even alternative timelines and realities have quite the potential. Now that I think of it: It would most certainly be quite certainly a very Kane-like move to just lie low while Yuri does the heavy lifting, and then when all the pieces are in place make, or attempt to make his move. The relation between Kane and Yuri would also be interesting, because don't we start to creep up on a big old grandfather paradox scenario sooner or later here? Or have they both been so removed from each other due to time travel shenanigans, that they are now capable of existing without the other? Would a megalomaniacal madman like Yuri (who loves himself pretty clearly) have qualms about trying to get rid of, in essence, himself? To add more amusing speculatory juice to all of this: Are all the clones he made of himself (besides serving as a vital part of his army) some sort of mental training for that? So he has no qualms about facing himself, when the time comes? Practice dummies, for the eventual battle of wills he assumes would come? The clones were made inferior after all, stated to be so they couldn't overthrow the real Yuri, but perhaps they had a secondary function? Besides making assassinating the real Yuri very difficult, that is. Heck, how did the Allies at the end of Red Alert 2 Yuri's revenge know they got the real Yuri in their little psychic isolation chamber gizmo, rather than just a clone posing as the real one? Or the Soviets know the real Yuri was the one they sent back in time? With an army of clones, pretty hard to tell, I would imagine...

[@IctivGoka]

@@videocrowsnest5251 I probably shouldn't reveal this, in case I ever do make that follow up video I planned, which dissects all the ways the worlds of Fallout and Command and Conquer mesh together very well. (The ending of this video is of course a quick run through of Fallout History but with a bit of "the Brotherhood of Nod was behind everything" thrown in there.) Still, as the credits somewhat reveal, this was made for my players in a Fallout based GURPS campaign where during the course of the game I revealed that that entire version of Fallout split off from a copy of Yuri splitting a new timeline off from the original. The idea was, that in this version of events, Kane was dug in deep enough into Stalin's inner circle, that when Yuri attempted to weed the Brotherhood out and take control of the soviet union, they assassinated Stalin themselves with a poison that looked like the anneurism that Stalin actually died of, and blamed it on Yuri, as surely the guy who messes people's heads is the one who caused their great leader to die of a brain injury! Following this, Kane escapes to Mexico, which the Brotherhood has no way to attack openly due to America's Moreau Doctrine, hence instead opting to go for the crazy plan of trying to overthrow the US government and install their own. They do this by starting false, violent support groups for one of the parties, causing that party to implode, while digging their claws into the other, to assume near total control of policies when the US transforms into functionally a one-party system by the abscence of a competitor. All this, they do to allow themselves easy access to Mexico and to track down Yuri, but it's too late, as by this time, Yuri had already collected the pieces of the Tacitus, having come from a future where they were recently uncovered, so still remembering exactly where they were. This is where it gets a little crazy, because I went with one specific interpretation of what the Tacitus is, which I found the most entertaining: The idea, that it's actually the soul/mind prison for an alien, who was once an enemy of the Scrin. Well, here was my though: Why not make those ancient enemies of the Scrin the Zetans from Fallout? Yuri uses the tacitus with a prototype psychic beacon he managed to build with his meager resources, and sends out a warning to the Zetans, about the asteroid heading for earth. The Zetans intercept and destroy the Tiberium asteroid before it reaches Earth, leading to a world where Tiberium is never introduced, but the Brotherhood of Nod is still around. Naturally, Kane's most key prophecy being proven false shakes the brotherhood, mostly destroying or fracturing it, but a core group continues they work. They use the ancient crashed ship they had in Tiberian Sun, extracting the tiny fragments of decayed tiberium that once powered it. Obviously, since that ship didn't actually infect the planet, whatever strain of tiberium its owners used to use wasn't as infectious as the main infector agent, so Nod just kept experimenting with it, trying to force it to mutate into a strain that would being spreading as the strain on the astreoid would have. Introducing: The Blue Flu. The canonical, inexplicable disease that spread through all of the Fallout world, starting in the US, the result of secret US research. Well, in my version of events, it was the work of Nod, still working inside the US government. Funny thing about the Blue Flu? It was also the basis for the Force Evolutionary Virus, the thing that explains all the Tiberium mutants tier nonsense that goes on in Fallout. The idea was, that the Blue Flu was an attempt to release an infection version of Tiberium which would spread far and wide as it's supposed to. And in lab envoiriments, it worked. Except, only because all labs were running on Nuclear Power, and the version they created, was only active when irradiated, hence why the highly nuclear power dependent US being decimated by the Blue Flu, but it not spreading into nature. No problem! Let's agitate a nuclear war! It will work if the entire planet is irradiated! Somewhere in the middle of all that, they also managed to finally track down and kill Yuri, except all they actually killed was a clone. The real Yuri, would then proceed to infiltrate Nod, having changed his face, force Kane's covert capture, and take his place, imprisoning Kane instead of trying to kill him. (If Yuri knows one thing, it is that you can't kill the Messiah.) Yuri's take over creates the shift towards the Forced Evolutionary Virus, his way essentially to create the hulk like grunts of Yuri's Revenge, who will be the perfect thralls in the post-nuclear world, but not before Kane manages to miraculously break out of confinement, reveal his treachery, and start a Brotherhood of Nod civil war in the shadows between "the Two Kanes" that results in all their plans getting thrown off, and even the Brothrhood getting blindsided by the nuclear holochaus of October 23, 2077 that kicked off the world of Fallout. There's a whole bunch of other things that went on with that campaign, like Kane being behind the Church of the Unity, and its archbishop guding the Master down a different path from his original, as designed by Kane, but the stuff before is just the main part of how I envisioned Kane and Yuri playing a game of cat and mouse, with the world itself in the balance.

[@videocrowsnest5251]

@@IctivGoka I've never played Fallout, but I would most certainly tune into this kind of video. I really like the way you did this Occam's sponge video, almost like a mix of a chronicler/storyteller, and you did it in such a cinematic way too with top-notch editing to help make it all very clear. It's quite unique (or at the very least quite rare) as far as videos go, especially ones touching Command and Conquer in any way. I do hope to see more videos from you in the future in a similar sort of style. On the topic of the Tiberian Sun era Nod spaceship: Didn't Kane say it was constructed at the end of Tib Dawn ("This hangar houses an alien warship constructed at the end of the last war", or something of the sort), in one of his briefings to Slavik, where he went to fetch it for Kane, only to find Vega had stolen it to settle a score in the states? If Kane is telling the truth here, this would mean Nod built the dang thing, rather than just found it. Nod did at the very least though have access to a spaceship of some description by Tiberian Dawn, as seen in the last mission of Renegade where Havoc finds a crashed alien ship in the back part of Nod's base in Cairo. That one probably was just something they found crashes away, and likely where they got the idea to try and built their own ship by reverse engineering its workings. It is very curious though that Nod seemingly never tried to build another one, after Vega ruined the first ship by crashing it, which had its stripped remains fall into GDI hands. Unless they somehow lost the information on how to do it (and the blueprints on how to build a copy of an actual alien warship kinda do not seem like something you'd just leave lying around to be forgotten or lost), ala what happened to Nod's stealth technology archives, it smells like just another plot thread EA didn't wanna bring up. Though possibly, if we imagine Nod did not lose those plans, and did build their warship copy: They probably couldn't actually use it, because as soon as they would try GDI's ion cannon network would blast it out of the sky, or their space based orbital systems would detect it. Even if they tried to fly it away from earth, those ion cannons would still be able to destroy it, less some fancy flying happened.

[@IctivGoka]

@@videocrowsnest5251 Hm, you might be right. I remember him saying something about the ship having something to do with the end of the previous war, but I don't know why they'd talk about it the way they do if they built it themselves. Perhaps they fixed it? I'd really need to revisit the lore.

[@cillianennis9921]

I would say the WWII still happening without Nazi Germany is pretty realistic. Before the Nazi invasion of the USSR the allies had assumed the war would eventually go on to be against Russia as well. Russia did the same crime that started the war invading Poland so it'd make sense that in a version of the 1940s where Germany became closer to the rest of Europe that Russia would continue to try & rebuild the Russian empire & continue on to try & spread communism across the whole of Europe as even in our timeline Russia still did that with it "liberating" many countries that where under Japan & the Germans. Eastern Europe would be a very different place without the Nazi's invading most of it. Also the borders are all wrong for Europe in the 1940s in the alternate time line. I am guessing a modern map of Europe was used as reference because there is a few mistakes. Finland doesn't control Karelia despite them only losing that after WWII due to Russia invading them. Poland is too far west when it should have a more trapezium shape & be closer to modern Belarus. Germany is missing its control of East Prussia which it didn't lose till after the war when it was ceded to the Re-established Poland. Lithuania, Latvia & Estonia should be independent as the USSR only gained control of them after the war. Hungary should be slightly larger. I think there is a few minor errors in the Balkans. The area of Kaliningrad (at the time Königsberg) would also be a part of Germany. I've tried to look around a bit more to see if any other countries would be different but not really. I think a few minor countries existed around this time that don't anymore like a city state or 2 but I am not certain. The Czechoslovakia should be a bit longer but Other than that no other map problems. A few countries alignment is a bit odd for the time I am assuming that without the existence of a fascist Germany that the Fascists lose the Spanish civil war leading to Spain being in the allies. Some butterfly effect of no Hitler must lead to no Fascist Italy or maybe the threat of the communists makes the fascists in Italy join the allies here. I think its mentioned somewhere that places like India & such aren't in the allies which doesn't make sense as I'd guess that Britain, France, Portugal, Spain & Italy more or less keep their colonial empires. I'd guess that the Japanese however still invade most of the East & South East Asian colonies however not China due to Russia. I think their are a few more oddities out in Asia but we never focus on them. I kinda wish they'd made a FPS of red alert like they did with the Tiberian series as I am sure a game like that could've explained these minor places better.

[@NiiRubra]

Ah, a point where you kind of lose me is when you follow NoStrng's assumption that C&C1 happens in 2020, which I would posit is severely incorrect. The game's text (so to speak) establishes the setting pretty firmly in the 90's through all of its snippets of pop culture, as demonstrated through television (you can't possibly tell me that that's 2020 tv), and then there is also the element of developer intent, the game's story was born out of what the developers would see on tv at the time, with the Bosnian War of the mid 90's, this directly influenced the eastern european theater of the game. Not to mention that it makes more sense for Nod's ascent to power to accompany the arrival of Tiberium, a mutagenic organism that _rapidly_ alters ecosystems around it, instead of doing so slowly over the course of 25 years. If Generals happened before C&C1 but after the arrival of Tiberium, then Tiberium would certainly be an element in the story of Generals. This element of the theory just doesn't float. And sadly the real reason why Generals 2 became "Command & Conquer" is very likely purely due to branding power, in the eyes of corporate know-nothings the title "Command & Conquer" is more convincing to prospective buyers than the sequel to a spin-off. Another point of disagreement I have is with GDI choosing to use the Chronosphere that they surely must possess, if they were willing to use such technology, then surely they would have gone back in time to inform someone about Tiberium, becayse it devastated the world, they would also have attemped to prevent Nod's rise at the same time. Hey maybe that's what leads to Generals happening, I don't know. I enjoyed the rest of the theory though, my apologies for spending most of my comment criticizing comparatively small segments of the greater whole, I just don't have much to add regarding the rest, beyond repeated instances of "yup, that makes sense", "I agree with you" and "that's an interesting idea, I like it", but I do want to clarify that that's how I feel about the greater whole.

[@NiiRubra]

At a few points you mention that nothing stops the meteor from creating the Tiberium timelines, and I can see what you mean, but I want to flip that on its head: nothing guarantees that it will happen either. Tiberium is a precious resource, that the aliens who we refer to as Scrin (but who are probably not the actual Scrin) would not part with unless it was an investment. Are we to assume that they found Earth by chance? Or that they simply throw Tiberium out there, on trajectories to stellar bodies, hoping they will hit an earth-like planet, instead of a gas giant or worse? They would need to find Earth first, they would need to know that it is a fertile world for their unique brand of crops to grow, something that Kane would be keen to make known to them, because he wanted them to come. I believe Kane signaled the not-Scrin somehow through his actions, and this doesn't necessarily mean that he had to do it in the distant past either, since the not-Scrin utilize faster than light technology, which circumvents the "winds of time" and can likely defy causality. The aliens arrived on Earth when they thought the planet would be ready for harvest, but the point of seeding could happen at any time of their choice, perhaps it happened at some point during the alternate second great war, the seed was sent on its way then, and it took it only a few decades to finally arrive, during the mid 90's.

[@IctivGoka]

I see what you mean by the thematics, though I think I have to disagree on the grounds that I think it's just a product of how most visions of the future work in the kind of stories which's tropes C&C borrows. Lawnmowerman and Tron (which the Nod ending borrows from) are extremely specific visions of how computers work, that only really make sense within the decade the films were made. Isaac Asimov's Foundation series project 1940s and 50s attitudes of science into the far distant future a humans only galactic empire to critique the direction things are going, Blade Runner's vision of commercialism is also very specific to that time in exactly how it's portrayed, and unsurprisingly its sequel introduces a lot of new things that are more akin to the 2010s' trends. It is an imperfect vision of the future, and does assume that things more or less stay the same, which is never the case, but NoStrings' assumption is based on direct text written by the developers, that confirms that the events of Renegade take place around 2020, which neccessitates that C&C itself be set around that time too, since they take place during the same conflict. As for Nod's rise to power, indeed, Nod should be there from the start, but the way they are portrayed as having gathered strength behind the scenes, masquarading as a financial organzation until the breakout of the war. This by itself implies that at least a couple of years had to have passed since the meteor landed in the mid 1990s, since it would be even more unlikely that a brand new financial organization can gain market dominance in but a few months and become a trusted name, no matter how good they are at what they do. Finally, the spread of Tiberium is generally portrayed as exponential. Which is less to say fast, and more that it has a period when it's only beginning to spread slowly, and then as its influence grows, it begins growing faster and faster. The only counter to this idea, that Tiberium wasn't growing globally right away, is the cutscene showing the meteor crash, followed by crystals sprouting, but considering all the cutscenes of C&C being framed as things our character sees on a screen as broadcasts or informational summaries, that seems more like an in-universe artist's rendition of the meteor, rather than actual footage of what happened and how fast. Again, I see what you mean, but I think there's a lot pointing the other way to. Thanks a lot for your comment and for watching!

[@Commodore22345]

@@IctivGoka "but NoStrings' assumption is based on direct text written by the developers, that confirms that the events of Renegade take place around 2020, which neccessitates that C&C itself be set around that time too," The problem with this logic though is that both you and No Strings aren't applying it consistently. You use "direct text from the developers" to justify the 2020 date for the First Tiberium War, but then completely ignore other "direct text from the developers" that places the First Tiberium War between the years 1999 and 2002. What text am I referring to? The manual for Tiberian Sun. The manual for Tiberian Sun very clearly states that the First Tiberium War ended 28 years prior to the beginning of Tiberian Sun. Now we know from in game cutscenes that Tiberian Sun takes place in 2030. 2030 - 28 = 2002 Then in the GDI ending of Tiberian Dawn, the news reporter says that war has been going on for 3 years. So if the war ends in 2002, then 2002 - 3 = 1999. I'm not trying to sound like a jerk with all this, but I have to say that both you and No Strings are absolutely dead wrong with your assertion that the First Tiberium War was in 2020. Especially if we apply a legal concept known as "preponderance of evidence". Basically, that concept states that when there are two opposing assertions in court, the judge decides which one is valid based on which side provided the most convincing evidence to show their assertion is the more likely of the two. If we apply the concept of "preponderance of evidence" to the start date of the First Tiberium War, then the dates of 1999 to 2002 have much more convincing evidence to support it than the 2020 date. Like I said in another comment, that 2020 date relies on a single line of text from a game that I would argue is a "lower form" of canon since it is a spin-off game, not a main line entry into the series. Meanwhile the 1999 to 2002 date has direct supporting evidence in both the manuals and cutscenes from a main line entry (thus a higher form of canon) in the series. There's also the fact that Renegade was made during a time when EA had taken over Westwood and the original creators of C&C were moving on from the company. None of the people who were involved with the writing of the original lore were still at Westwood at the time Renegade was created. That makes it even easier to ignore the 2020 date stated in Renegade's manual, since we can write that date off as the new team not understanding or just flat out ignoring the original intent for C&C lore by the people that first created it.

[@IctivGoka]

@@Commodore22345 I'm sorry, but I tried looking for the 28 year figure you mentioned, but I can't seem to find it in the Tiberian Sun manual. I have a non-English copy in paper, so I used the one available on the wiki to try and find what you're referencing (Here: static.wikia.nocookie.net/cnc_gamepedia_en/images/b/be/Manual_Tiberian_Sun.pdf/revision/latest?cb=20180801164647) but I appear to be blind. Could you clarify where the manual claims it was 28 years, in case my eyes just keep going over it? All I found was confirmation of the 2030 date for the game's setting in there, and a mention that GDI was formed proper in 1985, or rather "45 years ago". What I saw there in regards to Nod, was just that GDI and Nod were butting heads in the 20th century already, though it does also phrase that Kane disappeared for 'decades' so there's that. In any case, it is a bit of a mess, and I wouldn't really argue to death exactly when each game is set. The purpose of the video was mainly just to create an interpretation of the convoluted timelines presented in the games that could with a bit of stretching compile into something narratively satisfying, instead of the games existing just in disjointed alternate realities. On a personal level, I feel like the 2020 figure makes more sense, given that I don't really know how even Tiberium would supposed to single handedly take over the entire world market in just ~4 years to the point of making Nod into an economic superpower from holding key Tiberium fields. In 4 years, I imagine scientists would just about get to the point where they can start making something useful out of it... But then again, this is the same franchise where Einstein throws together Mirage Tanks and Prism Towers in what feels like a long weekend, so who knows.

[@spartacus778]

outstanding work

[@maxrander0101]

given that the company that aided in the construction of all the allied tech also exists in the Tib Wars timeline just under the direct control of the GDI we already knew they timelines were connected my person thought is that they had a backup time machine and were the ones behind the generals always being sent to the right time and not being killed when all others were as i think your really always the commander from futuretech thus your only ever going through the games as they are wanting to see how each group reacts to things

[@IctivGoka]

Yeah, Futuretech is an interesting anomaly, I simply didn't go into them because it's hard to really pinpoint anything on them too explicitly given how little presence they have in the games. I have little doubt that Westwood had some plans with them, but it'd be hard to say exactly what those plans were. I kind of like the idea of all the GDI/Allied commanders being Future Tech plants (except for Tiberian Sun where we have fully fleshed out commander characters), though I don't know if I'd say I agree with *all* of them being Futuretech plants, mostly because I can't really see Kane of all people trusting folks that just appeared out of nowhere, as a time traveller would, and he does trust all the Nod commanders, as well as the Soviet commander of Red Alert 1 (unless we count them as Nod as well). I was planning a followup video to this at some point, which I might still do eventually (in a few years), that talks about the similarities between the Fallout and Command and Conquer universes, if I ever get into that, I might get into Futuretech more, because the idea of them being this rogue agency that uses what is basically mad science to mess around with the world in a cosmic way is very much in line as well with how Fallout treats its own tech companies, whether it's Vault-Tec, West-Tek, etc.

[@Commodore22345]

@@IctivGoka "Westwood had some plans with them" Westwood didn't have any plans for them. FutureTech wasn't introduced into the series until long after Westwood was dissolved as a studio by EA.

[@IctivGoka]

@@Commodore22345 True enough, though as I recall, most of the people in charge of Red Alert 3 and Tib 3 were veterans from Westwood, so I kind of think of everything before EA turned it into some weird mobile franchise as Westwood in spirit. Inversely, the people making The Sims 4 are called Maxis, but I don't really consider them the same company/group as the one that made everything between SimCity 1 and Spore, because no real creatives overlap behind the scenes.

[@requiemcollectiblesgaming]

When does Renegade take place?

[@IctivGoka]

That's a good question, and I'm not 100% sure myself off the top of my head. It's definitely set during the first Tiberium War, but whether it's set in the Nod victory timeline, the GDI victory timeline and whether it lines up with any speciic campaign mission at some point I couldn't really say. No Strings does talk a little about it here though from what I recall: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYfRe5WDl7ecmpo

[@disclaimer4211]

No strings claims that renegade might take place around 2019 but I think it would have to depend when the ion cannon was first used since renegade has it used quite a lot especially when you are given an ion cannon beacon on the first mission which would imply gdi had developed the ion cannon well after the VERRY first gdi mission that we don't play as the player in Tiberian dawn. It would also imply that gdi tried to gain a foot hold in Africa with the ion cannon was in development which could also help tiberian dawn's lore as to how the general public rumors were spreading about gdi's ion spaced base weaponry.

[@requiemcollectiblesgaming]

@@disclaimer4211 It almost seems like a CnC prequel

[@V12-i4b]

Lmao I wondered why you used the pipboy filter and then you went on to quote the fallout 1 intro

[@IctivGoka]

Yeah, it was the second or third earliest hint in the video that this will tie into Fallout as a bit of a joke. The one before it, was that one of the 9 videos shown in a grid at the very beginning, is actually from the bad ending of Fallout 1 (rather than from C&C), the door of Vault 13 blown down. There might have also been a vaguely Fallout specific reference in the Scrin text at the start on the right, I can't remember. Though it wasn't the bottom text, because I remember that says: "If you can read this, you don't need a Babel-fish.", which is H2G2. Thanks for watching the whole thing, really appreciate it!

[@V12-i4b]

@@IctivGoka for no other reason than to satiate my burning childhood imagination of these 2 universes that I loved colliding, I hope you do go on a long tangent about fallout. Maybe the Guardian Of The Stone FO2 random encounter is the result of Einstein's tomfoolery

[@IctivGoka]

@@V12-i4b Actually, I explained quite a bit of the crazy stuff in Fallout as Einstein's Tomfoolery during the GURPS Fallout campaign where I first united C&C with Fallout. The idea was, that a crazy wastelander at one point managed to find the old Chronosphere prototype and tried using it, but messed it up so bad, that they essentially created a feedback loop. They would send something back a few seconds or minutes, and create a new timeline. But in that new timeline, the machine would again send back something, creating a new timeline, and... I'm sure you see where this is going. The idea was, that because of this feedback loop of countless new timelines being created, the timelines kept dragging themselves back together (timeline merger), but they couldn't outpace the creation of new timelines, so the timeline merging is just now part of the natural state of things. The Fallout universe is continuously merging with alternate copies of itself, while also slowly pulling in entirely separate timelines, thus ending up with the crossovers with Star Trek (more the shuttle than the guardian of eternity), Doctor Who and so on. In fact, Luck as a tangible concept is based on this constant flux of timelines criss-crossing eachother, with the Mysterious Stranger themselves being essentially someone who through some freak accident ended up existing outside of the normal flow, and fading in and out of existence at random points, sometimes sticking around for a while like in Fallout 1 and 2, other times only being present for a few moments (Fallout 3+). Most of it is too goofy to really get in depth explaining, because it was just fun stuff I wanted to include in the GURPS campaign, that I handwaved into existing on the premise of the Chronosphere sucking entire separate realities into Fallout, physically turning it into a melting pot of pop culture, but it was still neat. This is also how I ended up with Cobra (G.I. Joe) being a Chinese black ops operation, which started a few brainwashing programs, including a martial arts club in California, with whom they hoped to train loyal guirella fighters on American soil. Its name? Cobra Kai (Karate Kid). That one was because one of the players wanted to play a martial arts expert Tribal, so I had his tribe be a descendent of a group of people who used to be members of the Cobra Kai dojo and made it their personality. Later even Cobra Commander showed up, but naturally, since it had to be a hodgepodge of everything, it turned out Cobra Commander had been long compromised, their helmet being a receiver for Yuri's psychic link, the actual position of Cobra Commander being handed down, but whoever received the helmet being brainwashed into doing the will of Yuri. Lots of silly fun like that.

[@V12-i4b]

@@IctivGoka Oh boy, by that logic I can't wait for Chris Chan and CWCville to be canonical in both Fallout and by association CNC

[@casey1714]

This is quite an interesting timeline idea! Now, I have one question where would you fit Generals into all of this? edit: oh. I was just there right as i posted this.

[@IctivGoka]

Hah, it happens to all of us (at least it happened to me a couple of times before). Glad you enjoyed, and thanks for commenting!

[@casey1714]

@@IctivGoka Heh, yeah I do wonder if you'll ever expand upon your C&C Fallout idea, I would like to see lore videos surrounding it

[@IctivGoka]

@@casey1714 Don't want to promise anything, but we'll see

[@trafichat]

That was... A lot.

[@IctivGoka]

I'll take that as a compliment!

[@Deucehoru]

Not enough! ​@@IctivGoka

[@sbplankton_1999]

There was Yuri's Revenge has Coop_campaige with Three Mission Play as Yuri faction, with a story.

[@Commodore22345]

I was with you on this until you adopted No String's start date for the First Tiberium War at 2020. I don't care what the manual for Renegade (his only concrete source for that claim) says. There is simply too much other evidence to support the original assertion that the First Tiberium War takes place between 1999 and 2002. One throw away line in the manual of a spin-off game in the series doesn't override the mountains of established lore that contradict that throw away line. So with that said, the idea that Generals takes place before Tiberian Dawn simply doesn't work, even with all the time travel shenanigans. I appreciate the work that No Strings tried to do, but I think there are several key misunderstandings about C&C lore that he accepts as fact, which taints the validity of any lore analysis he does. And, by extension, any other lore analysis that uses his work as a base is also tainted. I think we all just have to accept that Generals is truly it's own unique story that has absolutely no connection to the Tiberian or Red Alert timelines. Also, I don't know when this idea that Generals takes place in the 2010s comes from because the manual for Generals very clearly states that it takes place sometime in the 2020s. If you are going by the fact that Generals 2 was going to be set in 2020, thus retconning the manual for Generals, I would say that since the game was cancelled and never released, any story, lore or retcons it introduced should be 100% discarded and not taken into any consideration when doing any kind of lore analysis for the overall series.

[@Commodore22345]

Of course now that I think about it, there is still a potential way to work in the whole "Generals takes place before Tiberian Dawn" thing while using the 1999 to 2002 dates for the First Tiberium War. Despite supposedly being set in the 2010s or 2020s, the weaponry and tech we see in Generals for all the factions generally has a late 1980s or early 1990s feel to it. Obviously there are some exceptions, like the F-22, laser weapons, UAVs and the US's Particle Cannon super weapon, but for the most part the tech matches late-Cold War era tech. So if we just ignore what the manual for Generals says, then we could perhaps place Generals sometime between 1992 (after the fall of the Soviet Union in an unaltered timeline) and 1995 (the arrival of Tiberium). Some of the more advanced tech we see in Generals could even be seen as the precursors for the tech we see in Tiberian Dawn. The Overlord Tank could be the precursor for the Mammoth Tank, the Particle Cannon the precursor to the Ion Cannon, etc. Even the laser weaponry the US uses could be the precursor to Nod's own laser weapons since the manual for Tiberian Dawn does mention something about a scandal involving US defense contractors secretly selling weapon tech to the Brotherhood. And placing it at this point in the timeline would also explain why there is no mention of Tiberium since it hasn't arrived on Earth yet.

[@IctivGoka]

To clarify the 2013 figure for Generals, Zero Hour mentions that the Emperor Overlord tank entered production in 2013, which is more a lower limit than an actual date, but I think it's reasonable to assume it's Cutting Edge, and that's the only date I know of. I'm not familiar however with the 2020 figure from General's manual, so I went and browsed through an online scan of the english manual (didn't read it thoroughly, just looked at sections I hoped might mention a year), and again I can't seem to find the 2020s figure. I'm sure it's in there somewhere, maybe in one of the unit descriptions like the Zero Hour 2013 figure, but I can't find it at the moment, so if you can point me to the page, I'd appreciate it. Overall, if I'm honest, I don't really consider stuff in manuals (including Renegade) as gospel, preferring to stick to what's directly stated in games. Like I said in another reply, my main goal was to create a timeline that is overall narratively satisfying, while contradicting no- or barring that: as few established sources as possible.

[@IctivGoka]

The 80s/early 90s idea for Generals also works for the most part I think. Off the top of my head, the only thing that would fly against it is the Chinese hacker unit who I think references the Internet as being a thing that already exists, but then who is to say (wireless) Internet didn't come about sooner in CnC, considering Kane had access to some Lawnmower Man type systems by the end of Tib War 1?

[@giantasssipder6301]

hey I am making a video of mine very soon it gonna be on youtube it talks about the command and conquer series as well so anyway can I contact your choice of course you so we can make a possible collaboration thank you for the amazing effort put into this one i really enjoyed it and may good things come to you in the future my fellow fan

[@IctivGoka]

Hey, thanks a lot! Honestly, I'm not 100% sure how much I could help with this sort of thing, especially now, but if you have some questions about the lore or whatever I'd gladly help out, just not sure how best to keep in contact right now. Alternatively, if you're working on this kind of project, there are two Discord servers I know that would probably have a lot of people ready to help (I'm not really active on my Discord lately, but the servers have a lot of other people on them). One is No Strings Prd's server, he's another guy who made excellent C&C lore videos in the past. He's currently taking a break as well, as he's helping make an actual RTS game right now and is I'm sure busy with that and life, that one you can join through this link: discord.com/invite/nJKq47B The other is Tiberian Cruentus, which is a fan community. I wasn't very active in it, but when I did check it out it seemed full of a lot of passionate fans so they might also help! Their permanent link is: discord.gg/3wvxTV78en Whatever comes next, good luck!

[@giantasssipder6301]

​@@IctivGoka Thank you for responding so fast that was an expected occurrence if you and Mrs. No Strings Prd's are busy right now that's understandable I am going to mention both of you in my video essay so no worries there really and link your video essays and as for the discord servers and fan site I am going to check them out and see what lore is there to help me out again thanks a lot One vision one purpose Kane lives in death ✊

[@RGBArchive]

Awesome video.

[@IctivGoka]

Thank you for watching!

[@videocrowsnest5251]

Noting something that's a bit off topic, but amusing here (nothing, not my field of experience, so just for giggles): If we imagine for a moment that the time travel by accident´, and later on purpose, at the RA2 Yuri's Revenge soviet campaign happened, this would create some...interesting butterfly effect type issues. Starting out small, well...all those funny little microbes, germs, etc both on all the surfaces, and inside the time travelers, from the future would also be transferred to the past, yes?` So, the same would likely happen with the Soviet forces who returned from their little trip back to somewhere when the dinosaurs still walked the earth. This would in all likelihood have the potential to really cause mayhem with things. Then there are all the tanks shells and bullets the Soviet forces uses to repel dinosaur attacks, plus eventually after Yuri is kicked back in time the remnants of the decaying time machine and it's components. Sure, in millions of years any of the hazardous materials would likely be sorted out (and the time machine would have been eaten away by time, so to quote a Chrono legionnaire, it "Never existed"), but it would still have the potential to have quite a large impact on the bacterial, microbial environment. Which obviously is not really good news if we are talking returning to a timeline one has altered by fiddling about with things in the past, because well....quarantine time, yes? Unless there is some really funky autocorrection going on, such as due to this always being the case from the point of anyone not in on the whole time travel business, everyone knows about Tsauruspox, and there is a vaccination for it handy dandy... so I suppose really, only all the people who the time travelers ended up getting killed because they went and spread their germs everywhere, plus the time travelers themselves would probably be the ones suffering from any issues. That is, if the time travelers also didn't just bring dinosaur age germs and viruses with them to the present, which nobody has any immune defense against, and medicine has no idea even exist (nothing here that due to global warming and earths glaciers melting, we may get to meet some very ancient germs and bacteria soon, that took the long way around to get to greet and meet us rather than hitchhiking here inside some poor comrade time traveler, as they come out of the ice after it's a done melting. And we probably got no idea what they are, and have zero immunity to them to boot. Oh boy, doesn't that just sound like Covid-19 will one day look like a funny little thing, in comparison? Or the first pandemic of many, causing us to hunker down in our bunkers to take shelter from.) Anyways, speaking of which: Heck! Imagine if we built a time machine today, and a would be time traveler took Covid-19 back in time? That would be such a massive change of things, that even IF they only went back in time to, I dunno, collect a stamp or something, and coughed out some Covid-19 dosed mucus on some poor unsuspecting patient zero, by the time they got back to their future, they would have quite a mess to examine at from their little stamp collecting trip. Talk about a major oopsie to find out that just cause you bent the laws of space and time to get a rare stamp, tens of millions are dead from The Great Covid of 1873, and there is a new virus that has ancestry to that one you should definitely get a vaccine for, because it's that time of year again....

[@videocrowsnest5251]

Side note: I wonder if there is any media made that actually dabbles in touching this whole funky business of how would be time travelers are most likely great at dispensing unwelcome invader microbes, germs, bacteria, and viruses wherever they happen to be honky tonkying around at, past, return trips to the present, or future. Which then has rather dire consequences from their point of view, being privy to this information, or not, in the case of them themselves being patient zero for raptor brain plague.

[@IctivGoka]

I'm picturing a scenario where Nod moves forward past the Soviet Ending of Yuri's Revenge, and starts conducting their Tiberium research under the guise of seeking a vaccine to The Great Plague through Tiberium's ability to adapt!

[@videocrowsnest5251]

@@IctivGoka Would definitely be something. Seeing as they would control the world's scientific community via the Soviet Empire, nobody would probably be around (not for long, anyways) to offer any counterpoints to using Tiberium as a vaccine being a very poor idea. They'd probably be also able to pull some ridiculously massive coverup's that nobody in our world could pull off, during the part of the experiments where all they are doing is killing people, and creating a bunch of vicceroids.

[@sbplankton_1999]

40:24 Hey!!! The man Who Play the movie in 2004.

[@ScudLance]

dank

[@sbplankton_1999]

That's left hands.

[@IctivGoka]

Hm? What is left hands?

[@sbplankton_1999]

@@IctivGoka Havoc: That was left handed!

[@dogedogego]

This is such a wildly underrated video, investing at 50 subscribers 🫡

[@dogedogego]

The more I watch this, I’m so glad someone else shares this level of passion as I do. I wonder how Generals could fall into this timeline 😅

[@dogedogego]

Holy crap I’ve hit the part where you fit in Generals, this is amazing 😂

[@IctivGoka]

Thank you!