Speculative timeline of early Haixing history

[likealeafonthewind]

This is a kind of a follow-up/companion to rheasilvia 's lovely timeline for events involving the SID which covers everything from the treaty onwards but this focuses more on the history of Haixing and Dixing. 

There's a lot that we aren't told in the show about just how much time passes between each event so I've written my own thoughts in italics and would welcome any thoughts/suggestions/speculation any of you may have! If you're interested in looking at just the order of events, there's a list here which is still a work in progress.

This contains spoilers for the whole series.

• Over 10,000 years before the start of the show, a spaceship lands on Haixing; the aliens on board either intermingle with humans and create two new species (Yashou and Dixingren) in addition to humans (ep 01) or the aliens already belonged to two different species and decide to live peacefully alongside humans (ep 34). Generations pass (ep 35)
• Shen Wei and his brother are born. Their parents die when they were children and they eventually decide to leave home and make a living elsewhere (but as soon as they did, the meteor hit) (ep 35)
• A meteor hits Haixing and destroys the ecosystem of the planet, resulting in a depletion of resources in Dixing (ep 34)
  • Honestly not sure how long it would take for an ecosystem to be destroyed by a meteor to the point of depleting underground resources. I would guess that there are some immediate effects and some long-term effects, so maybe we're talking months to years?
• An extremist Dixing Chieftain forms a rebel force because of the lack of resources and starts a war trying to take over Haixing. (ep 34)
• The Dixing Chieftain comes across Shen Wei and Ye Zun when they're children and try to recruit Shen Wei into the rebel force he's putting together. Shen Wei declines and the Chieftain manipulates Ye Zun into going with him instead. (ep 40)
• The Yashou (under Fu You), Haixing people (under Ma Gui), and Dixing people form an allied coalition. They plan to recruit Kunlun, but he's killed by the rebels before they can. (ep 34)
• Fu You and Ma Gui create the holy tools out of fragments of the meteor (ep 34)
  • I would guess that they fought in the war for some time before 1) deciding to create something like the holy tools, 2) figuring out how to use the meteorite to create the holy tools, and 3) actually crafting the holy tools
• The holy tools are stolen by the rebels (ep 34)
• Zhao Yunlan is dropped off by a wormhole and saves the Black Cloaked Envoy during a battle against the rebel forces. Zhao Yunlan is asked to assume the identity of Kunlun, as his death had been kept secret for the sake of morale. (ep 34)
• Zhao Yunlan helps Ma Gui make baijiu, which takes about a month. (ep 35)
  • There's been some discussion around this already but how long was Zhao Yunlan in the past? It's at least a month but probably not more than a year? Although it could be up to a few years and we wouldn't necessarily see much difference in his appearance, but he couldn't have been there long enough to show visible signs of aging.
• Ye Zun kills the rebel leader and takes over, the rebels declare outright war against the allied forces, Black Cloaked Envoy and Zhao Yunlan ambush the rebels in a forest and steal back the holy tools, and the holy tools are activated during a battle which results in Kunlan/Zhao Yunlan being pulled into a wormhole in the sky, Ye Zun getting trapped in a pillar, and Black Cloaked Envoy being buried underground. (ep 35)
  • This last series of events look like they happened one right after the other in the show, but there's room in there to say that a few days to a few weeks could have passed between Ye Zun declaring war and Black Cloaked Envoy and Zhao Yunlan ambushing the rebels

Please let me know if I've forgotten something!

Comments

[lynndyre]

This is good, thank you! I wish we had a better estimate of Dixingren aging, because I really wonder how long the rebel leader had Ye Zun.

I also wonder if the awl specifically locked Ye Zun in the pillar, because it did the same thing to Sang Zan.

I feel like there must have been a while of skirmishing and spying to be able to get the Hallows back for that last confrontation, but the show progression never gives much time to breathe.

[qikiqtarjuaq]

I feel like there must have been a while of skirmishing and spying to be able to get the Hallows back for that last confrontation

One of the questions I never quite got resolved despite asking is: How on earth did Ye Zun manage to steal the Hallows? Why him in particular? At that point in the story, he had no powers? Yet the rebel chief entrusted him alone to the task and had the nerve to berate him for taking too long?

It gives me a lot of unanswered questions about what exactly Ye Zun's role was amongst the rebels. It seems like he was some sort of "ideas" guy. I would have liked to see Ye Zun plan a heist.

[lynndyre]

He was actually smart and the entire rest of the rebel camp seems to have been selected for maximum brainwashability? But the leader also seems to - not *like* Ye Zun, but that Ye Zun is his favourite to mess with, and he has fun making Ye Zun think up answers for him, and then stomping on him.

[qikiqtarjuaq]

Yeah, from the start, there was something weird about the leader's dynamics with Ye Zun. He really disdains Ye Zun's weakness, but for whatever reason, likes keeping him around still? I guess he just really needs someone even weaker than the other rebels as a punching bag who can't hit back. Man, I hated that dude.

[lynndyre]

The more I think about it the weirder it is. Like, Ye Zun is still dressed in white, just like when he was little. But that means the rebels had to specifically find/commission pure white clothes to dress him. Why? Why was this a priority? Why is Ye Zun wearing a mask, back then? Is it copying Shen Wei, who they've heard is being the masked envoy?

Such a creep.


I'd love to know how he went about stealing the Hallows though.

[qikiqtarjuaq]

I've always wondered why Dixingren sometimes just really liked to wear masks. Like, they're just casually wearing masks drinking in a bar, and Zhao Yunlan's guess of a masquerade was completely off. Nope. This is just something they do!

So I guess there is a decorative element to it? It's not just Shen Wei's reasoning for wearing a mask to hide his fears.

But now that you mention it, it is interesting how Ye Zun is dressed so differently (and so much better) than the rest of the rebels. There's a dark plotbunny in there somewhere about them keeping pretty Ye Zun around, dressed to the nines. :(

[lynndyre]

You're right, they totally have that whole bar! I wonder if Shen Wei and Ye Zun are the origin of Dixing's cultural mask-kink, or products of it?

...I knowwwww. I don't want to think it, but. It would sure fit. And he's already being mind-controlled. And we don't see any women in the rebel group.

[extrapenguin]

I support Shen Wei being the origin of the mask kink! After all, legends seem to work differently in the Guardian universe (see: the portrait of Ma Gui sitting in the Minister's office), so it's very plausible that they might have a bunch of traditions related to the Black-Cloaked Envoy, masked and thus anonymous, who brokered peace between the worlds and disappeared a hero before he could exist long enough to become the villain.

With regards to Ye Zun ... yeah. Poor thing. The pure white clothes would likely also make it hard for him to run away, due to how visible they were. And now I want some darkfic of it.

[likealeafonthewind]

I love the idea of the mask-wearing being a sort of homage to the Black Cloaked Envoy who helped bring about peace!

And yeah, Ye Zun....it hurts my heart to think it but this does make sense.

[lynndyre]

That would be cool! And Shen Wei would find it super awkward. XD

;_; tiny Ye Zun trying to run away, augh.

[extrapenguin]

The best theory I've heard for how Ye Zun managed to steal the Hallows is that he simply waltzed in, picked up the Hallows, and marched out, while all the guards thought that obviously this was the Black-Cloaked Envoy traveling incognito for some mission and failing at it hilariously.

IIRC it was stated somewhere that Ye Zun hated how his face reminded him of his brother, so he wore a mask. This might've been a fic, though? (And then he got a new mask that was his brother's except painted differently...)

[likealeafonthewind]

he simply waltzed in, picked up the Hallows, and marched out, while all the guards thought that obviously this was the Black-Cloaked Envoy traveling incognito for some mission and failing at it hilariously

Lmao, I love this! And I can totally see Ye Zun doing that.

Maybe the rebels were also setting Ye Zun up as a counter to the Black Cloaked Envoy (not knowing that BCE was actually Ye Zun's brother)? Since the allied forces had BCE leading them and being the figurehead, they had Ye Zun dressed in exactly the opposite color as their own figurehead (except he was more of a mascot, since he wasn't actually leading them the way BCE was leading his own people).

[extrapenguin]

I don't think they're making Ye Zun into a figurehead – the Rebel Chieftain seems to be very much into only wielding power by himself for himself.

[likealeafonthewind]

Yeah, that's true.

[trobadora]

IIRC it was stated somewhere that Ye Zun hated how his face reminded him of his brother, so he wore a mask. This might've been a fic, though?

That was on the show - episode 35, about 23 minutes in.

[likealeafonthewind]

Oh, thanks for pointing that out! I'm gonna make a note for the wiki.

[lynndyre]

I would absolutely believe that, esp since it's what he tries to do in 34. (with lots of plotting to remove the shield first)

[mecurtin]

Ye Zun is his favourite to mess with

Yeah, that's one way to put it. That Ye Zun was sexually abused in the rebel camp--along with all the other kinds--seems to me to be VERY close to canonical. It would be nicer to think it wasn't true, but I don't think that's where the preponderance of the evidence is.

[lynndyre]

Yeah, that's. It's there. I need some Ye Zun happy endings.

[likealeafonthewind]

Thanks!

I wish we had a better estimate of Dixingren aging

I've been wondering a lot about that too. In the episode with Butler Wu, when Shen Wei realizes that his abilities are weakening due to age, he has a thought that's something like "then how much longer do I have?" So I had thought that Butler Wu, like Shen Wei, was thousands of years old. But then the show had Shen Wei in stasis for all that time and now I have no idea.

I also wonder if the awl specifically locked Ye Zun in the pillar, because it did the same thing to Sang Zan.

Yeah, I do think it was the awl's ability that created the pillar but it almost looks like Ye Zun could have randomly got caught in it. (I'm just not sure how the holy tools would have targeted him specifically out of everyone on the field because they're not sentient.)

I feel like there must have been a while of skirmishing and spying to be able to get the Hallows back for that last confrontation

Agreed. There must at least have been a couple of spying missions for them to know where to set up the ambush.

[mecurtin]

I had thought that Butler Wu, like Shen Wei, was thousands of years old. But then the show had Shen Wei in stasis for all that time and now I have no idea.

My conclusion is instead that Shen Wei *wasn't* in stasis all that long, that he woke up from the dirt!nap after only a couple thousand years at most. Yes, there were firearms, but it took humans only about 2000 years to go from iron swords to firearms and we had no background in interstellar travel to build on.

Shen Wei makes too many references to "waiting 10,000 years" for me to believe that he spent almost all that time in stasis.

[likealeafonthewind]

Fair! I tend to lean more towards Shen Wei exaggerating how long it's been (maybe being in the modern day world is a constant reminder to him that he was born 10,000 years ago and he feels Old). The Justiciar/Regent is the one who says that 10,000 years have passed since the war just before Shen Wei's found from his dirt nap, in episode 35. Though someone did point out that the word for 10,000 also means a long time, in general, so possibly the subtitlers were taking it too literally. I wonder what Chinese fandom makes of this number...

[qikiqtarjuaq]

Thank you for writing that up! This is an excellent resource for fic-writing.

[likealeafonthewind]

Yay, thanks! I hope it helps! That's mainly why I started putting this together in the first place - I needed to be able to reference stuff for a fic.

[maggie33]

This is great, two really helpful post about timeline in one day. :) *bookmarks*

[likealeafonthewind]

\o/ Hope it comes in handy!

[extrapenguin]

Nice timeline! One thing I'd like to add is that we know Zhao Yunlan was in the past long enough to ferment some baijiu, ie at least a month. (These are from the Yashou Leader episode. We see Zhao Yunlan give advice to Ma Gui both to start making the wine and when the wine is ready.)

[likealeafonthewind]

Oh, this is helpful, thanks! I've added it to the original post.

[trobadora]

This is a great resource, thank you! ♥

[likealeafonthewind]

Thanks! Hope it comes in handy.

[tinny]

Awesome! I'm adding all of these to memories for later perusal.

[likealeafonthewind]

Thanks! Hope it comes in handy!

[rheasilvia]

Thank you for this! :-) There is so much to untangle about the timelines in this show... it really helps to have the early history clarified like this.

[likealeafonthewind]

One of the things I love about this show is that there's so much to untangle about the world itself, but it does get very confusing and overwhelming (and sometimes even writing it out doesn't help much!).

[sam_gardener]

This is great! Thank you.

[likealeafonthewind]

Thank you! ^_^

[galaxysoup]

This is very helpful - thank you!

[likealeafonthewind]

Great! I needed to get it all down to help me keep things straight so I'm glad it's helping others, too.

[lunabee34]

Thanks for this timeline; it's so helpful for fic writing.