Welcome to A LINE THROUGH T⌛ME, where I take the time to look through your favourite
franchises and work out how it all lines up.
Before we proceed with how MK11 affects the timeline we established previously, I need
to acknowledge a few omissions and error macros from the previous video. First and most prominently,
I made a mistake in the discussion of MK Mythologies. I said that it's set a year before MK1, but
Scorpion says in the MK1 prequel comic that he was killed two years ago. This places Mythologies
in 1990, not 1991.
On the subject of the adventure games, Special Forces, before the departure of John Tobias
and the game's radical restructuring, was apparently intended to come right before MK1,
possibly leading directly into it. But, as I explained in the episode on Special Forces,
that doesn't really work, so I moved it to in between MK2 and 3.
The MKX comic also has Kotal Kahn claim to have been at war with Mileena for ten years,
even though his coup only happened five years prior to the game. It's game vs comic, but
also text vs dialogue, so I don't know which one should be taken more seriously. As such,
I'm not going to bother trying to decide. They certainly didn't.
Johnny's story in Deadly Alliance's Konquest mode claims he took part in Celebrity Smash
TV, a nod to Midway's 1990 arcade game, Smash TV. This means the show is part of MK canon.
This took place in 1991, in between Mythologies and MK1.
Now, for MK11 and how it ruins the timeline.
First, Johnny mentions that two years have passed since Raiden turned "grim and gritty".
From our conclusion last time, this would place MK11 in 2021. However, there is evidence
elsewhere in the game to dispute this. A pre-fight exchange between two Cassies places a firmer
timeframe on the series:
Cassie: "Class of 2010."
With kids in the US graduating high school at age eighteen, this places Cassie's birth
between September 1991 and August 1992. Unless Cassie graduated early (and let's be honest,
she doesn't really seem bright enough for that), this means she was most likely conceived
in '91, which places the then-recent defeat of Shinnok (MK4) in 1991. This is two years
after Kahn's defeat, meaning the original trilogy occurs in 1989. Given that the time-displaced
characters are from MKII, this means that when Johnny tells Sektor to
Johnny: "Go back to the '90's."
he's being told to go back to a decade he's not experienced yet. Lovely. I guess we have
to weigh up the specific year given by Cassie in non-canon pre-fight dialogue, versus canonical
story dialogue that could be Johnny fucking up. Wouldn't be the first time he's gotten
dates wrong, after all. I'll assume Johnny was right, though, and stick with my original
timeframe. Makes a hell of a lot more sense that way.
In Chapter 1, Sonya gives a speech about how the SF has been Earthrealm's primary defence
force for twenty-five years. If we assume this timespan began with the Outworld invasion,
then we take away the two years between that and the Netherrealm invasion, and then the
two between MKX and MK11, that means Netherrealm has settled on the timeskip in MKX being twenty-one
years, not twenty-five, even if twenty-five makes a lot more sense for Cassie to have
the position she has. So, let's assume the SF came into such prominence two years after
Shinnok's invasion, because I can't be arsed dealing with such shortsighted claims.
More pressingly, the game reveals that there have been many more timelines than the two
we've seen, depicted with quick shots of a number of identical fights between Raiden
and Liu Kang, largely only differentiated by location and the favourite colours of the
two. The potential implication of this is that everything is canon. Every spin-off,
movie, TV show, comic, and even the Jeff Rovin novel could all fit in the canon as alternate
timelines that existed prior to the current one. Of course, depicting that would have
been a lot cooler than Red Raiden vs Yellow Liu Kang. After all, the movie universe can't
get much more tainted by being included, and Defenders of Realm would certainly fit with
Netherrealm's current policy of no boobs allowed.
I'm going to try to make this work. I'll say that only the timelines that are shown exist
in this universe; that they occurred in the order they're shown; that they took place
between the first and second real timelines, because I refuse to have any predate the actual
original timeline; and thus, that the Armageddon shown in MK 2011 is not the same Armageddon
from... well, Armageddon, since that allows the others to fit in, and makes the shift
from Taven to Kahn as the winner not a retcon. I'll assume Taven kicked Shinnok's arse, so
his mummy rewound time to undo his boo-boos and then made sure the big bully wouldn't
wake up in future timelines.
This gives us:
The original timeline of MK Mythologies to Armageddon
Redden vs Blue Kang in the Dead Pool
Dark Raiden vs Tattoo Kang in some nebulous void
Purple Rainden vs Shirai Ryu Kang in the Subway
Dark Raiden vs Revenant Liu Kang at the Soulnado
Dark Raiden vs Zombie Liu Kang in Armageddon
MK1-ish Liu Kang on the island
Barely visible Raiden vs Yellow and Blue Kang in the Subway
Blue and White Raiden vs Emperor Liu Kang in the void
Another Redden vs Zombie Liu Kang in the Dead Pool
Normal-ish Raiden vs Tattoo Kang in Armageddon
Shirai Rai-den vs Fully-Clothed Liu Kang at the Soulnado
Barefoot Revenant Liu Kang in the Dead Pool
MK1-ish Liu Kang on the island again
Blue and White Raiden in the Subway
Yukimura Raiden vs Another Tattoo Kang in the void
Blue Raiden vs Emperor Blue Kang at the Soulnado
Red and White Raiden vs Purple Revenant Liu Kang on the island
Jacketed Blue Kang vs Xbox Raiden in Armageddon
MK 2011's intro
MK2011 to MK11
The New Era
Before this game, we were on Timeline #2, and now, we're dawning on #22. We are officially
on the storytelling level of the Endless Eight from Haruhi Suzumiya. Lovely.
I'm not going to summarise the overall plot this time because with Kronika and the Titans,
D'Vorah killing Jerrod, and all the costume changes and other such retcons, it's hard
to tell what's supposed to be a result of Kronika resetting the timeline and what's
just Netherrealm's bad continuity. God, this series needs a hard reboot...