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violethowler · 2 years ago

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An Updated Guide to the Timeline of VLD

Last Edit: 10/19/2024

After reviewing my timeline notes in more detail, I decided I wasn’t happy with editing my original VLD timeline guide, but I didn’t want to just delete the earlier meta outright. So I decided to start over and make a brand new meta that reflected my current research notes without me having to constantly go back and edit the old one every time I realized I had missed something.

And boy am I glad I did because in the process I noticed details that I completely overlooked when I made the last timeline guide that trying to edit the original post would’ve led to redoing the whole thing anyway.

So now I present to you my most complete and up-to-date notes on the timeline of Voltron Legendary Defender as of April 2023. Under the cut because this is going to get long.

Part I: The Time Period of the Show

While the show never gives exact dates on when major events in the series take place, we can narrow down when the Paladins left Earth by examining context clues and supplemental material. From there, we can use that to determine a rough idea of the show’s timeline.

Pidge’s flashbacks in S1E05 Tears of the Balmera and the fact that Iverson doesn’t mention her, Lance, and Hunk’s bickering being a pattern when he berates their failure in the simulator during S1E01 The Rise of Voltron indicate that the day of Shiro’s return to Earth was the trio’s first time in the simulator together, and that this was fairly early in the school year.

From a Watsonian perspective, it’s not out of the question that a future Earth might follow a different school calendar. But from a Doylist perspective, since the show never says otherwise, we can take it as a given that since VLD is an American cartoon, the Garrison follows the same academic schedule as American schools. Which start the school year in late summer/early fall and end in late spring/early summer.

At the start of Lance, Pidge, and Hunk’s simulation run in S1E01 The Rise of Voltron, Lance calls out “Galaxy Garrison flight log 5-11-14.”

And Matt’s tombstone in S4E02 Reunion confirms that these numbers represent a date:

Pidge confirms that the 0010.05.25 represents a birth date, since looking at it is how she determines that Matt’s birthday is wrong. Because this is obviously a tombstone, we can logically conclude that 0014.04.28 represents a death date.

Lance’s 5-11-14 flight log number in S1E01 is most likely a reference to the fact that the show started production between April and June of 2014.[1][2]

And when Keith shows the other paladins his notes that he’s compiled on his search for the Blue Lion, a page-a-day calendar can be seen on the back wall showing that the paladins left Earth on the second of whichever month it was.

Meanwhile in S1E02 Some Assembly Required, Hunk refers to Shiro’s rescue from quarantine as Monday night. This would put the paladins’ departure from Earth on Tuesday afternoon, as Iverson confirms in S7E07 The Last Stand: Part 2 that the Paladins left Earth the day after rescuing Shiro.

So, if we look at the months in 2014 near the start of the American school year where the 2nd day of the month was a Tuesday, we can narrow down when the Paladins left Earth.

And the only option that meets all of those criteria is September 2nd, 2014.

Obviously the show doesn’t take place in 2014 because the technology the characters use in their daily lives on Earth is significantly more advanced than what we have in real life even in the 2020s. Not to mention Veronica name dropping World War III in S7E07 The Last Stand: Part 2 as a historical event.

However, it’s also obviously can’t be too far into the future, because other than having more advanced technology, much of what we see of Earth civilization looks fundamentally similar to our present day in terms of things like clothing and architecture, just with some futuristic flourishes here and there:

The fact that the years on Matt’s tombstone in S4E02 both begin with 00 as the first two digits raises the possibility that Earth decided to create a new calendar that started 14 years before the paladins left Earth.

However, it’s more likely that the production staff simply wished to leave it ambiguous how many centuries into the future the show takes place, as from a Doylist perspective there is no purpose to having Earth be on a different calendar system unless it’s relevant to the story.

Not to mention that it doesn’t make sense from a Watsonian perspective, since a change as widespread as the mass-adoption of a new calendar system would have to be in response to a major event that deeply changed society on such a widespread level that the society decided to define it’s calendar by how many years have passed since that event.

And the known event in the history of VLD’s Earth that might have this level of significance is World War III, which the showrunners have said in interviews resulted in “everyone on the planet realizing war sucks. We’re one Earth.”[3]

However, none of the characters act like it’s a recent event that happened within their lifetimes. The one time it’s mentioned in S7E08 The Last Stand: Part 2, Veronica speaks of the conflict as if it was a long time ago. Long enough that she has to preemptively clarify that the underground tunnels used to reach the Garrison’s supply depot are still structurally sound.

On top of the logistics not working out for World War III to have been the cause of a dramatic change in Earth’s calendars, Matt being Pidge’s older brother means that he would’ve been born before the hypothetical calendar change would’ve been adopted.

Yet S4E02 only shows Pidge’s attention being drawn to the year on Matt’s birth date being wrong when her tear slides over to the 10, when the lack of anything before it would’ve stood out first if he was born before the calendar reset to Year 0.

So we can safely take it as a given that the extra zeroes in the years on Matt’s tombstone are there to maintain a sense of ambiguity over what century VLD takes place in.

Which fits with how showrunner Joaquim Dos Santos described how the writers kept the history of VLD’s Earth “nice and nebulous” rather than going into detail on the logistics of World War III.

However since we know that the dates we do have used the 2014 calendar as a basis, and that the Paladins left Earth on Tuesday, September 2nd, all we have to do is find a year ending in 14 where September 2nd is on a Tuesday that’s far enough into the future that there’s enough time for all the advancements of VLD’s earth, but not so far ahead that it’s completely unrecognizable to the 21st century audience.

Which works out well because the next year ending in 14 with September 2nd on a Tuesday is 2414.

Part II: Known Character Birth Years

If we treat it as a given that Season 1 of VLD starts in the year 2414, then we can use that to narrow down the exact birth years of the human Paladins, as well as Allura, Lotor, Matt Holt, and Kova.

Kova is the oldest character whose birth year is known to us, as Haggar states he is 28 deca-phoebs old shortly before the destruction of Daibazaal and Altea.

Allura and Coran were in cryo-sleep for 10,000 Earth years, and Coran’s pedantic comment in S1E01 about the castle being 10,600 years old and built by his grandfather indicates that this number is exact.

This would put the destruction of Altea and Daibazaal in 7586 B.C.E., as Coran’s narration in S3E07 The Legend Begins indicates that the other planets in their solar system were conquered quickly after Zarkon and Haggar woke up from their Rift baths, meaning that both the Altean and Galran homeworlds were destroyed within a very short window of time.

Since Kova was 28 when Daibazaal was destroyed, he would’ve been born in 7614 B.C.E.

Meanwhile, S8E02 Shadows showed that Haggar only became coherent again after she gave birth, and flashbacks in S8E10 Knights of Light: Part 2 depict her participating in the conquest of the system. Which indicates that Lotor was born in between the destruction of both his parents’ home worlds.

In an interview recorded at WonderCon 2017, Lauren Montgomery and Joaqim Dos Santos talked about how despite initially having more knowledge and experience than the other paladins she was “just as young as anyone else”, and that she was handling overcoming her prejudice against the Galra “like any teenager would.” [4]

This indicates that Allura is still a teenager herself in the first 2 seasons.

Something which is supported by the fact that Allura was born less than 28 years before the fall of Altea yet looks to be around Keith, Lance, and Hunk’s age. Which indicates that while Alteans can live for hundreds of years as evidenced by Coran helping his grandfather build the Castle of Lions 600 years before the war against Zarkon, they age at roughly the same rate as normal humans until they reach adulthood.

Since she’s visibly older than Pidge, the showrunners’ remarks about her acting like “any teenager” put her age before being put into cryo-sleep somewhere between 17 and 18, the ages listed for Lance, Hunk, and Keith in the Paladin’s Handbook.

And we can presume that the ages listed in the Handbook are mostly accurate given that Colleen Holt confirms in S8E01 Launch Date that Pidge was 15 when the paladins left Earth, which is the same age that the Paladin’s Handbook gave for Pidge as of the end of Season 2.

So, if Allura is the same age as Keith, Lance, and Hunk, then she would’ve been born between 7603 and 7604 B.C.E.

As for the human characters, the cast and crew of Voltron have consistently said that Shiro was the oldest of the paladins, and that his age was somewhere in his early twenties. The only time a specific number was given was in the context of providing a maximum limit to his age range. Saying that while he was at least 20, he wasn’t older than 25.

However, the fact that his official birthday is February 29th means that it’s impossible for him to actually be 25 as the Voltron Paladins’ Handbook claimed.

Because leap years only happen once every 4 years, in years that are divisible by 4 into a whole number (The only exceptions are years that are by 100 but not 400).

It’s not possible for Shiro to be 25 in Season 1 because that would require the year of the Kerberos mission to be a leap year, since Shiro’s 24th birthday would mark the 6th time that February 29th occurred on the calendar since his birth.

The year before 2414 would be 2413, which cannot be divided by 4 into a whole number (trying gets you 603.25). However the year before Kerberis, 2412, is divisible by 4 into a whole number (603), meaning that 2414 is in between two leap years.

With all of this in mind, the only way for Shiro to be older than 20 but younger than 25 in 2414, is if he turned 20 in 2412, as his 20th birthday would mark the 5th time since he was born that February 29th occurred on the calendar. This puts the year of his birth in 2392, making him 22 years old when he returns to Earth in Season 1.

Meanwhile, Pidge being 15 when the Paladins left Earth in 2414 would mean that she was born in 2399.

Meanwhile, the Coalition Handbook, which is written from the perspective of 1 deca-phoeb after the Paladins left Earth, talks about Krolia’s arrival on Earth being “about 19 Earth years ago,” indicating that Keith’s parents met in 2396.

The Handbook’s indication of a 1-year timespan from Season 1 to Season 5 is confirmed by Sam’s debrief during the flashback portions of S7E07 The Last Stand: Part 1. Commander Iverson mentions that Sam’s return to Earth in S5E05 Bloodlines happened a month before the meeting and says that the Keberos mission was two years ago.

Krolia’s arrival being about 19 years ago appears to reinforce the Paladin’s Handbook listing Keith as being 18 by the end of Season 2. Pidge’s age means that S2E13 Blackout can’t happen any later than April 2, 2415, meaning that Keith – whose birthday is October 23rd according to the show’s official social media accounts – turns 18 at some point during the first 2 seasons of the show. This puts his birth year in 2396 and indicates that his parents had to have met sometime that January, as we’ve seen little evidence to suggest that Galra pregnancies are any longer than human ones.

So, if Pidge and Keith’s ages in the Paladins’ handbook are accurate, then we can assume Hunk and Lance’s ages are too.

Lance’s birthday is listed by the show’s official social media accounts as July 28, so the timeframe of Seasons 1-2 means he would’ve already been 17 by the time the Paladins left Earth. This means that he would have been born in 2397.

Hunk is a little tricky since his birthday is January 13th, as neither the show nor the handbooks give any details to definitively confirm whether he turned 17 during the first 2 seasons, or if he was already 17 when they left Earth.

However, some context clues regarding the nature of the Garrison’s Cadet Program and the glimpses of his backstory that we got in S7E01 A Little Adventure can help make some educated assumptions.

In her goodbye to Matt at the Kerberos launchpad in S4E02, Pidge says “I can’t believe I have to go through middle school without you.”

Since Pidge makes no mention of attempting to enroll at the Garrison while Matt and her father are in space, this logically indicates that Pidge is entering 8th grade and that the Galaxy Garrison cadet program is for students at the high school level (Grades 9-12).

The fact that the MFE pilots had graduated by the time Sam returns in 2415 supports this, as their presence as background cameos in S1E01 and in the flashbacks of Keith and Shiro’s past from S7E01 indicate that they, Lance, Keith, and Hunk all enrolled in the cadet program the same year. This means that when the Paladins left Earth, Lance and Hunk were starting their senior year of high school

Keith and Lance being 17 and 18 during Season 1 is consistent with that, as 17 and 18 are the typical ages at which most American teenagers graduate from high school [5].

In the United States, many schools in grades K-12 use students’ birthdays to determine grade placement, with students who are born before a certain cutoff date (usually around the beginning of the school year) being placed in a higher grade level than students born after the cutoff [6].

For example, Lance and Keith are shown to both be in the same class at the Garrison in S7E01 even though Keith being born a year earlier means he’d theoretically be in the grade above Lance. But Lance’s birthday is in July, and Keith’s is in October.

So, if Lance’s July birthday is before the cutoff for enrollment for their grade level, then logically the same is true for Hunk’s January birthday, meaning that Hunk is already 17 during Season 1, putting his birth in the same year as Lance’s.

And knowing how the Garrison’s Cadet Program functions as an equivalent to high school means that we can figure out how old Matt is.

In the Shiro’s Story Ready-to-Read book, Shiro describes how he and Matt were selected for the Kerberos mission after they finished school:

Since Keith is still wearing his cadet uniform when he confronts Shiro about his disease, this means that Sam and Sanda’s argument about Shiro being on the mission had to have happened during a period when classes were in session, as the flashback of their hoverbike racing in S7E01 and the lack of comments from Hunk about being caught out of uniform in S1E01 indicate that students are permitted to wear casual attire outside of school hours.

This means that Shiro and Matt had to have graduated the year before the Kerberos Mission, and then spent the following year training and preparing.

From this, we can conclude that Matt’s senior year at the Garrison corresponded to Keith, Lance, and Hunk’s freshmen year, putting Matt in the cadet program’s graduating class of 2412.

This would mean that Matt started classes at the Garrison in the fall of 2408.

And when Pidge says that his birthday is wrong in S4E02, she only does so after the camera draws viewers’ attention to the year. Which indicates that the month and date are correct, putting Matt’s birthday on May 25th. Based on what we’ve established about cutoff dates for grade placement, this would mean that Matt was 14 years old when he started classes at the Garrison, putting his birth year in 2394.

Part III: The Main Narrative

Knowing that Season 1 begins in September 2414 allows us to use the date of the Paladins’ departure from Earth as a baseline from which to determine a timeline of the show’s main storyline.

As previously established, the meta references and context clues within the first season place the paladins’ departure from Earth in S1E01 on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2414.

Since this is “1 year later” from Shiro’s capture on Kerberos, this puts the crew’s abduction in September 2413.

Since the Paladins’ Handbook reflects events up to the end of Season 2 and refers to Shiro’s capture as being “about a year ago,” we can safely assume that entirety of Seasons 1 – 2 take place before the end of 2414 in order for the character ages in the guidebook to be accurate by the end of S2E13 Blackout.

And for the first several episodes of Season 1, we’re given enough information to pinpoint exact dates for when much of the first season takes place.

Arus’ environment is shown to be nearly indistinguishable from Earths’ so we can assume that days on Arus last for about the same amount of time as days on Earth.

Coran states indicates in S1E01 that the search for the lions took about 2 hours, immediately after which the paladins had their first battle with Sendak.

The beginning of S1E02 Some Assembly Required is confirmed to take place the following morning, as Allura refers to the battle against Sendak in S10E1 as “yesterday”. Coran then tells Pidge that the prisoners they rescued need to remain in the cryo pods to heal “until tomorrow,” putting the events of S1E03 Return of the Gladiator on Thursday, September 4th.

S1E04 Fall of the Castle of Lions takes place entirely at night, with the Arusian’s re-enactment of Voltron’s battle with the Myzax robeast and Coran’s comment about letting the Arusians see the inside of the castle indicating from context that this is still on Thursday the 4th. This puts the daytime events of S1E05 on Friday, September 5th.

S1E06 Taking Flight takes place on the 6th, as Allura states at the end of S1E05 that Lance should be fully healed from his injuries after a day in the cryo pods.

Shay’s Belmera was close enough that Hunk and Coran could fly there from Arus in a small shuttle pod, have dinner with Shay’s family, fix their shuttle pod, wander around in the tunnel looking for the crystal, get captured, get rescued by Shay, and then get back to Arus all in less than a day.

So even if they spent several hours talking to Rolo and Nyma in S1E06, they still would’ve reached the Balmera in S1E07 Return to Balmera the same day.

Since S1E08 Rebirth ends with Hunk showing Shay her first sunrise after the Balmera is liberated, this brings the paladins to Sunday, September 7th.

The first volume of the tie in comics is stated to take place right after this, as the paladins are leaving the Balmera in Issue #1. The bulk of the action happens over the course of the following day, as Issue #1 states that the Paladins’ battle against the guardian monster took place the day after they left Allura at the Castle, and the sky on Krell shifts from morning to afternoon colors over the course of the Paladins’ time there, along with the fact that the sky outside the Fripping Bolgogian is in sunset colors in both Issue #1 and Issue #5.

Then S1E09 Crystal Venom indicates that very little time passes since then when the Paladins begin to download Sendak's memories. Coran indicates that Allura should still be resting after healing the Balmera, indicating that very little time has passed since the end of the previous episode. Given how much time they spent on Krell, it's likely that the Paladins needed time to rest when they returned to the Castle, indicating that S1E09 begins as early as the day after the comics. After a length montage of time passing while they wait for Sendak's memories to start downloading, Hunk mentions going to make himself breakfast, indicating that a whole night has passed while they watched Sendak.

This means that the destruction of Alfor's AI cannot occur any earlier than September 10th. So the first 9 episodes of Season 1 and the first volume of the comics all take place from September 1st to September 10th.

From here, the timeframes indicated become murkier, as while many events seem to take place very close together, the fact that the guidebooks put Keith as 18 by the end of Season 2 means that S2E12 Best Laid Plans cannot take place any earlier than October 23rd, 2414.

There are a few instances where we can estimate the time between certain episodes, however, we don’t have enough concrete information to confirm an exact time frame by Earth’s calendar for anything after the first volume of the comics.

However, the fact that the Voltron Coalition Handbook refers to the Lion Shuffle as “many quintants ago”, even if that’s an understatement, indicates that since the second handbook is written from the perspective of Fall 2415, we can assume that Season 3 took place in 2415 as well.

Meanwhile, context clues in S3E01 Changing of the Guard and the 2 subsequent episodes indicate that only a short time passes between the end of Season 2 and the beginning of Season 3.

S3E01 shows that the Paladins have been splitting off to pursue their own objectives during the timeskip between Seasons 2 and 3, with Hunk and Lance liberating planets with the Blade of Marmora while Pidge looks for clues to her brother’s whereabouts while Keith searches for Shiro. Acxa’s reports in S3E02 Red Paladin on where they’ve been spotted by the empire only indicate a handful of sightings, suggesting that it hasn’t been that long since the end of Season 2. This is supported by the fact that Lance and Hunk brought the leaders of the planets they had liberated since S2E13 to the Castle to talk about joining the Coalition, and only 5 planetary leaders were present for the meeting.

Furthermore, as S3E05 The Journey depicted with Shiro, a human can survive up to 7 days without food or water. So in addition to Keith’s grief over Shiro’s disappearance still being fresh, the fact that he’s still looking for Shiro among the wreckage from S2E13 suggests that the start of S3E01 is within that 7-day window.

On top of that, Throk indicates to his friend when they’re sitting in the arena that he’s been trying to speak to Zarkon for several days without success.

But on the other hand, enough time needs to pass that planets like Puig will have heard of Voltron’s defeat of Zarkon before the paladins arrive

All of these details indicate that the time between the end of S2E13 and the beginning of S3E01 wasn’t more than 2 or 3 weeks.

So if the end of Season 2 was still in 2414 and the first 3 episodes of Season 3 were in 2415, that means that the final battle of Season 2 took place in December 2414, and the opening arc of Season 3 took place in January 2415.

Meanwhile, S3E05 shows that Shiro travelled in a stolen Galra fighter for 7 days after Thayserix before Keith found him at the end of the episode. Even if there’s some time dilation involved, the fact that the Paladins are surprised Lotor was able to construct the first Sincline ship so quickly in S3E06 Tailing a Comet indicates that it hasn’t been that long since Lotor stole it in S3E04 Hole in the Sky, meaning that all of Season 3 took place in January.

S7E07 indicates that Sam’s debriefing happened a year after the Paladins left in Season 1, putting the meeting scene in September 2415. This would be consistent with Iverson’s introduction of the MFE pilots indicating that they’ve graduated from the Cadet Program.

The next time-skip jumps to 1 year after Sam’s debriefing, indicating that Matt contacted Earth in September 2416.

Matt tells his parents that Voltron hasn’t been seen in 6 months, putting the last 4 episodes of Season 6 in March of 2416.

He also mentions that the Coalition and Blade of Marmora memories are being hunted, and that their army had been “all but wiped out”, indicating that the Druids’ counterattack had clearly been going on for some time before Matt contacted his parents. However in S8E02, Macidus tells Haggar that “it has been phoebs since Emperor Lotor disappeared,” and that “the Blade of Marmora still challenges,” indicating that the purge of the Coalition and BoM had not yet begun as of two months after Voltron’s battle with Lotor, putting the beginning of the attacks on the Blade and Coalition somewhere between May and August of 2416.

Meanwhile, because of the 3-year time jump, this means that the Paladins began their voyage back to Earth in March 2419.

Near the beginning of S7E06, Shiro indicates that it’s only been a few weeks since he woke up in the clone body at the end of S6E07, and when Lance asks how long they’ve been out there, Romelle says “going on four movements” before he then asks how much longer it’ll take to reach Earth.

Coran’s comment in S1E02 about his Paladin lunch helping the team form Voltron “six times a movement” is said in the same manner that we’d say “seven days a week” in real life, suggesting that one movement is 6 quintants.

Which means that by the beginning of S7E06, the Paladins have spent more than 18 days flying back to Earth, but less than 24.

Meanwhile, the Paladins mention in S7E03 The Way Forward that, from their perspective, their battle with Lotor was “a few weeks” ago, indicating that at least two movements had passed since the end of S6E07 Defender of All Universes by the time they encounter Ezor and Zethrid’s pirate crew at the end of S7E02 The Road Home. However, it’s ambiguous whether all of those movements were spent on travelling or if it took the Paladins a few days to finish the preparations for their voyage before leaving the Dalterion belt.

And Pidge’s insistence in S7E06 that they still have one and a half Earth years of travel time left gives me the impression that we’re still in the same calendar month.

From all of this, we can conclude that the entire first half of Season 7 up until the Paladins fly out of that energy burst and reach Earth takes place within the month of March 2419.

Depending on how long the Paladins spent repairing the lions and preparing for the voyage between the end of S7E01 and the beginning of S7E02, this means that their landing on the Dalterion Belt and Shiro being merged with his clone had to have occurred somewhere between March 1st and March 8th, which would also apply to the timing of the Paladins’ battle with Lotor in S6E07.

With Sam’s debriefing being a month after he landed, and him being released from quarantine after about a week, he would’ve had to have landed and been released in August 2415 in order for September 2416 to still be “just over a year” after he started working to upgrade Earth’s defensive capabilities.

With the debriefing scene being “four years ago” from the beginning of S7E07, this would put the Paladins’ return to Earth in August 2419.

The liberation of Earth appears to only take a couple of days at most, and according to Shiro in S8E01 Launch Date, rebuilding took “several months” before the Paladins were ready to return to space.

This puts the beginning of Season 8 in late 2419 or early 2420, and a line from Rizavi in S8E01 helps to narrow things down.

When Pidge sees the Killbot Phantasm game, Rizavi mentions that it came out just before Sendak invaded, and that because of that there hadn’t been enough time for any players to reach the final level. She then tells the shopkeeper that she waited 3 years to get to the end of the game.

Meanwhile, Macidus tells the Paladins in S7E05 The Ruins that he has been marooned on the planet they found him at for “the last two decaphoebs,” and that the Druids’ purge against the Blade of Marmora was them “carrying out her final orders.”

Since the Paladins would have encountered him in March 2419, this would put the fall of the Blade of Marmora and Kolivan’s capture in March 2417, 7-10 months after the beginning of the counterattack against the Coalition that Matt spoke of in S7E07.

S8E02 Shadows confirms that Sendak invaded Earth on Honerva’s orders in the hopes of drawing out Voltron. Given, the potential narrative symmetry, it’s likely that Sendak’s invasion of Earth took place around the same time.

Which would be consistent with how the MFE pilots are referred to by Admiral Sanda as cadets in S7E07 when they had already graduated from the cadet program the previous year because they, like Shiro appear to be in a post-graduate program to continue their education after high school:

At WonderCon 2016, showrunner Lauren Montgomery referred to Shiro as a “slightly older student.”

Meanwhile in S7E01 he appears to be assisting Iverson and other Garrison instructors with classes, but is not treated by other characters as if he’s a full-time teacher himself.

During the briefing scene in S7E7, Commander Iverson gives Shiro’s rank as Lieutenant, reflecting the tradition of fictional military organizations in science fiction to utilize the ranking systems of real world militaries, particularly with naval ranks such as Commander and Admiral which are exclusively used for naval officers.

During his visit to Keith’s school and his time overseeing simulator drills with Keith’s class, Shiro’s uniform only has two stripes on the shoulders of his uniform, and he’s never addressed by any specific rank.

However in the scene where Sanda and Sam Holt are arguing about Shiro’s inclusion on the Kerberos mission, his uniform now has three stripes on the shoulder, which he has been consistently shown to have in Pidge’s flashback to the crew’s disappearance being announced in S1E05, which show photos of Shiro, Sam, and Matt that would’ve been taken specifically for the mission’s publicity. And when Sam is debriefed in S7E07, Iverson identifies Shiro as a Lieutenant.

In our world, it takes an average of 4 years after enlisting in the navy for a person to be promoted to lieutenant. However, if someone enlists before or while in college, promotion to Lieutenant can be achieved with the completion of a Master’s Degree.

Depending on the field, a Masters’ degree would require an additional four years after completing a Bachelor’s degree. However, some universities that specialize in specific subjects (like mine did) offer a Master’s program that only takes an additional 1-2 years after receiving a Bachelor’s degree to complete.

Since the Garrison’s cadet program is teaching what 21st century viewers would consider advanced college-level science to high school students, it’s plausible that the Garrison has an advanced program for graduates of the cadet program to continue taking classes. Which makes sense because the Garrison’s cadet program is clearly an example of a vocational school, which focuses education at the secondary (high-school) and/or post-secondary (college) level on teaching students the skills and knowledge required for a specific career path, as opposed to a more general education.

It explains why tie-in books indicate that Shiro and Matt graduated from the Garrison at the same time. While Matt was completing his regular education in the cadet program, Shiro was finishing up his advanced education track.

Because Shiro makes multiple comments that imply an in-depth knowledge of physics and astronomy: From knowing enough constellations to recognize in S1E01 that the Blue Lion’s wormhole has left them in unfamiliar space, to being able to calculate the approximate speed of the black lion’s fall at the start of S2E01 Across the Universe in his head despite the pain of a glowing magic wound in his side and the general exhaustion of the battle they’d just come out of.

It even explains why S7E01 has Shiro was helping with classes and Adam mentioning having a class to teach, because many high schools and colleges offer work-study programs to where students can work part-time jobs at the school in exchange for financial assistance, as well as to get hands on work experience in a particular field so that they can transition from school to working more easily. Which also explains why Sam and Adam both mention Shiro having gone on multiple space flights and missions by the time he’s selected for the Kerberos mission even though the timeline indicates he’d only be 20 by the time he was chosen for Kerberos.

And since my analysis of Garrison lore indicates that the grey/green uniform that Shiro wears when visiting Keith’s school is reserved for those whose work in administrative roles and other capacities in the day-to-day running of the Garrison, this would indicate that he graduated from the cadet program at least a year or two before, and received the new uniform as part of the work-study program when classes started up the following school year.

So, the MFE pilots continuing their education after completing the cadet program would explain why Sanda would still refer to them as cadets even if they’ve already graduated from the cadet program: because even if they’re not in the cadet program anymore, they’re still students.

The pattern we’ve established regarding the human characters’ birthdates and grade levels means that Shiro would’ve graduated from the regular cadet program in 2410 (meaning he would’ve enrolled in 2406) and finished his advanced studies in 2412, making the Garrisons’ post-graduation education options a 2-year program.

This means that the amount of time that Sendak’s invasion of Earth had to have been before May of 2417. So, a March 2417 invasion around the same time the Druids and the Blades wiped each other out fits within that window.

And if that is the case, then Rizavi’s “three years” comment would put S8E01 in March 2420.

From the perspective of the crew of the Atlas, the first half of the season takes place over the course of about 48 Earth days. S8E08 Clear Day appears to take place within a couple days after the end of S8E07 Day Forty-Seven, as Hunk introduced the Altean robeast Pilots to Allura and Coran near the end of the day, and the following episode opens with Tavo agreeing to speak with Allura due to Hunk’s efforts at reaching out to the Alteans with food.

However, the leader of planet Drazan indicates that thanks to time dilation, the Atlas’ internal clocks are about 24 days behind the rest of the universe by the beginning of S8E08, as Coran notes that according to their calendars, Clear Day shouldn’t be for another four movements.

Depending on when in March the Atlas left Earth, this put the Clear Day celebration somewhere between May 12th and June 10th, 2420.

Based on how quickly events move following the events of S8E08, this would put the final confrontation with Honerva somewhere between the middle of May and the middle of June, which would put the epilogue in May or June of 2421.

Given that the fact the timeframe of the show was determined based on a meta gag about the show’s production, my instinct leans towards the second half of Season 8 all taking place in May, as it would mean that the entire main plot of the show – which was contracted for 78 episodes (the hour-long pilot being 3 episodes stitched together) – took place over approximately 7 years and 8 months.

Part IV: Backstory Dates & Other Timeline Trivia

Now that we’ve hammered out the timeline for the main events of the story, we can start filling in dates for elements of the characters’ backstories and other areas of the timeline not covered by the previous sections.

The First Kral Zera:

In S5E04 Kral Zera, the Archivist states in 2415 that the Kral Zera has been burning for “over thirteen millennia,” putting the first Kral Zera and the official founding of the Galra Empire as a political entity sometime before 10,585 BCE. Since he said thirteen, rather than fourteen, we can logically assume that it couldn’t be any earlier than 13,999 years before 2415, which would be 11,584 BCE.

The Daibazaal Rift:

Kova appears to be fully grown when Zarkon first meets him in Honerva’s lab in S3E07 after the discovery of the Rift on Daibazaal. Using Earth cat development as a basis for comparison, this would indicate that Kova is at least 1 year old by this point, meaning the earliest that the Trans-reality comet could have crashed was 7613 B.C.E.

However, it cannot have happened any later than 2 years before Allura’s birth. When Honerva shows Alfor that their Quintessence experiment is running after he thanks her for the gift celebrating Allura’s birth, he notes that the experiment has been running for a full year by that point. But despite the experiment being positioned right next to her workstation, it was nowhere to be seen when she and Zarkon were having their first meeting before the timeskip.

Meanwhile, before the episode transitioned from Honerva and Zarkon’s first meeting to Alfor showing his daughter off to Zarkon, Coran’s narration refers to Alfor visiting often “as the years passed,” indicating that more than one year passes between the discovery of the rift and Allura’s birth.

This means that since the experiment would’ve begun in 6704 or 7605 B.C.E., the Rift cannot have been opened any later than 7605 or 7606 B.C.E.

The Difference Between 1 Year & 1 Deca-Phoeb:

When Shiro and Allura are detected during their infiltration of a Galra cruiser in S1E10 Collection and Extraction, the computer identifies Shiro as "Fugitive prisoner 117-9875."

The format of his prisoner ID number indicates the year on the empire's calendar that Shiro was captured, meaning that the Galran calendar lists Earth year 2414 as imperial year 9876.

Initially, I thought this meant that the references to Altea being destroyed "10,000 years ago" were a generalization and that it wasn't exactly 10,000 years.

However, Coran's insistence on correcting Hunk that the Castle of Lions is 10,600 years old in S1E01 indicates that it was indeed exactly 10,000 years between Altea's destruction and the return of the Blue Lion.

Which left me with a bit of a conundrum of how to reconcile the two timescales. Then I remembered that S1E06 established that Earth and intergalactic time measurements weren't exactly 1:1, with Pidge and Coran's comparison showing that ticks were slightly bigger than seconds.

So I decided to do the math and see if how 9876 decaphoebs would compare to 10,000 years. And dividing both numbers by 9876 gives me 1 Deca-Phoeb = 0.9876 Years.

Meaning that Shiro's prisoner ID and the references to Altea's destruction being 10,000 years ago are both correct.

Garrison History

Pidge mentions in the Season 8 episode Knights of Light: Part Two that the Garrison managed to map the human brain "about twenty years ago." Since this episode takes place in early 2420, this puts the date of this event approximately in the year 2400.

Shiro and Keith’s First Meeting:

Since the Galaxy Garrison’s cadet program is shown to be for high school students, and that Keith, Lance, and Hunk were meant to graduate in 2415, we can deduce that Shiro and Keith first met in the spring of 2411. Most high school enrollment is done in the spring, so it makes the most sense for the Garrison to send Shiro to local schools to convince students who will be freshmen at the start of the next school year to enroll, as opposed to trying to persuade kids to transfer in the middle of the year.

Based on the fact that Lance was in 9th grade as a 14-year-old, the Garrison likely starts classes in August, which is consistent with the fact that Keith’s map of his search for the Blue Lion places the Garrison near the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

Where, according to my own research and the experience of friends who live there, the school year typically begins in late July or early August and ends in May.

This would mean that Shiro just only a month or two past his 19th birthday when he and Keith first met, while Keith was around 14 and a half.

Pidge’s Grade Level:

Though we don’t know exactly when it happened, the fact that Pidge is still in 8th Grade when she turns 15 means that somewhere along the line she had to repeat a grade during middle or elementary school.

Details and Aftermath of the Kerberos Mission:

In S4E02, Matt mentions planning to use their family code to keep in touch with Pidge during his mission, so the fact that Pidge never mentions receiving any message with the code letting her know that they landed safely indicates that Matt, Sam, and Shiro were abducted shortly after arriving on Kerberos.

The news broadcast announcing their disappearance is dated five months after the launch, and earlier in the flashback, Sam mentions that he and Matt “will be eating freeze-dried peas for the next two months.”

Since their abduction happened in September 2413, this puts the mission’s launch in July of 2413. From a logistics standpoint, a summer launch makes sense for the Garrison so that they won’t have to worry about disrupting classes, or cadets sneaking around to watch the launch and getting hurt.

This would mean that the crew’s disappearance was announced in December 2413.

Pidge’s confrontation with Iverson during S1E05 indicates that she was not aware of the involvement of aliens prior to her enrolling at the Garrison, as she only mentions that the Garrison’s probes show no sign of a crash on Kerberos and doesn’t bring up the transmission from the Galra warship to Zarkon’s central command that S7E07 reveals the Garrison had managed to record.

The Paladin Handbook states that a rescue mission to Kerberos recovered the remaining equipment, so the fact that Pidge doesn’t mention finding reports from the rescue team on Iverson’s computer in S1E05 indicates that the rescue mission hadn’t left yet when the disappearance was made public.

Since S7E07 shows video footage of Shiro, Matt, and Sam on Kerberos getting cut off as the Galra cruiser approaches, the probes were presumably destroyed by the cruiser as it arrived on Kerberos, and the Garrison sent new probes to try and reestablish contact before making the crew’s disappearance public.

A further piece of evidence for the Garrison beginning classes in August is that Pidge’s comments in S1E01 indicate that she’s been listening to Galra radio chatter for several nights now and can recognize that the level of activity on the night of Shiro’s return to Earth is higher than normal. A month would give her a decent amount of data to work with to identify patterns of activity.

The VR Game and The Zel:

In the opening of that one VR game Voltron: VR Chronicles, Zarkon and Haggar discuss a technologically advanced species known as the Zel, whose population was decimated by the empire a millennia ago, but whose homeworld remains hidden from the empire.

The game features Shiro still piloting the black lion, and Haggar indicates in the first cutscene that they’re still able to track the Castle of Lions through Zarkon’s bond with the Black Lion, which puts the game before the events of S2E04 Greening the Cube. However, the paladins don’t give any indication that they’re aware that Zarkon can track them like that, meaning that it has to take place before Allura gets captured in S1E10 Collection and Extraction.

Given the timeline established for the first 2/3 of Season 1, the only places the events of the VR game could fit is between volume 1 of the comics and the beginning of S1E09 Crystal Venom, or during the travel montage in S1E10. However, the lack of any mention of getting back to their journey to the coordinates of the hidden Quintessence refinery in S1E10 means it has to take place between S1E08 and S1E09, particularly since Lance notes the game’s robeast boss fight - a recolor of the same one that attacked the Balmera - is giving him deja vu.

In the VR game, Hunk also indicates that travelling via wormhole is still a relatively new experience for him, so it’s most likelt that this game still takes place sometime in September 2414 after the events of the comic.

All of which means that the empire’s battle with the Zel that Zarkon and Haggar talk about would have occurred somewhere in the year 1414.

Timeframe of Seasons 4 – 5:

S4E01 Code of Honor opens with Keith indicating that Lotor hasn’t been seen in months. Since their last encounter with Lotor’s forces was in early January 2415, and Keith says months – as in plural – the earliest the beginning of the episode could take place is some time in March 2415. However, based on the timeframe of Season 8’s Clear Day, it can’t be any later than the end of April.

S4E04 The Voltron Show! establishes that the planet Drazan has a 721-day year and only 1 of those days ever gets clear skies, with Team Voltron missing that year’s Clear day due to Coran’s miscalculations.

However, in S8E08, Drazan is celebrating another Clear Day and explicitly states that this is the first one after the one that Voltron missed in Season 4. Which means that a day on planet Drazan is longer than an Earth day or standard quintant.

We’ve already narrowed down that Season 8’s clear day took place somewhere between May 12th and May 24th 2420, so if we assume that the paladins missing the previous Clear Day happened within the same window of time in 2415, this would put the beginning of S4E04 sometime in May 2415.

(Which, incidentally, means that a year on Drazon would be equivalent to about 5 years on Earth, while a day on Drazan is approximately 60 hours or 2.5 Earth days).

Meanwhile, Coran indicates in S4E04 that Keith’s departure from the team has not spread very far yet, indicating that the episode begins a short time after the end of S4E01 since Keith no longer piloting the Black Lion is not common knowledge yet. This means that Keith leaving the team would have also taken place in May 2415.

S4E01 shows a montage of time passing while Keith works with the Blades, indicating that a notable amount of time passed between the beginning and the end of the episode. Furthermore, Allura’s comment about how Keith keeps saying he’s sorry for not being there, but his actions say otherwise indicate a consistent pattern of Keith being too busy on Blade Missions to perform his duties as the Black Paladin. This indicates that Keith was flaking on them for at least a couple weeks before the crisis where Shiro had to reconnect with the Black Lion.

Meanwhile, the fact that Coran states that Keith’s departure from the team at the start of the season is not common knowledge yet in S4E04 indicates that S4E04 actually takes place before S4E02. This is reinforced by the fact that Lotor’s urgency to access the Quintessence field in S4E05 Begin the Blitz indicates that very little time has passed since the end of S4E03 Black Site, which contrasts how S4E04 clearly took place over the course of several days, if not multiple weeks.

The timeframe for Sam’s return to Earth that I identified in the previous section puts all of Season 5 in August 2415, as events are indicated to happen fairly quickly:

S5E03 Postmortem clearly starts the morning after Zarkon is killed, and Lotor states that the Kral Zera will be held sometime in the next two days.

The hostage exchange in S5E02 Blood Duel likely only took a couple days at most of back-and-forth communication to negotiate the terms and details after the end of S5E01 The Prisoner.

S5E04 shows that Sam was making the final preparations to leave for Earth when Shiro and Lotor went to the Kral Zera, meaning that both Sam’s departure and the Paladins’ arrival at Central Command would’ve taken place a day or two later.

Pidge, Lance, and Hunk are shown spending most of a day goofing around on Central Command with their reprogrammed Sentry while Lotor and Allura are looking through Haggar’s lair.

After Allura finds the compass stone, they appear to head to Oriande if not that day then the following day, and when the castle loses power thanks to the White Lion, we’re told that the Castle only has another quintant of air left.

Assuming they spent a night recovering from oxygen deprivation like Shiro did in Season 3, then they would’ve returned to central command the following day. Right when they got back, Lotor had to receive a briefing on the state of the empire. A few hours later, he did his speech, following which Voltron went to help protect the Omega Shield

While it’s unclear exactly how many days passed between the end of S5E04 and Keith’s half of S5E05, Hunk indicates in S80E3 The Prisoner’s Dilemma that Keith and Krolia had already started their trip through the Quantum Abyss by the time the Paladins came to the aid of the Omega Shield.

So we can confirm that the entirety of Season 5 takes place in August 2415.

From there, we can narrow down a rough idea of when the rest of Season 4 takes place.

While it’s not stated exactly how much time passes between S4E06 A New Defender and S5E01, it’s implied to not be that long. In S5E01, Nyma thanks Pidge and Matt for helping with repairs on the Coalition’s fleet, saying the ships were “pretty banged up after the invasion.” This implicitly indicates that the attack on Naxzela and the rest of the Galra forces in that section of the universe was recent enough that repairs to the rebel ships that survived the battle were only just now being finished.

However, enough time needs to have passed that Lotor has been able to give them several locations for Galra bases to attack that were low-risk before he runs out of easy targets to give them.

So, it’s likely only been a couple of weeks at most since the end of Season 4. Since S4E02 and S4E03 happen only a day or two together, and S4E05 is implied to take place just a day or so after that, this puts the remainder of Season 4 sometime in late July, since Sam would’ve had to land on Earth in mid August in order for both his debriefing and Matt contacting Earth “just over a year” after said debriefing to be in September.

Which means that the third volume of the comics most likely also takes place in July, since the first issue of this arc depicts the Paladins attempting to drive a Galra fleet out of the Coalition’s new territory without letting them fly in the direction of the planets that were already liberated in S4E06 A New Defender, and the central conflict of the arc revolved around the paladins attempting to test if the information Lotor was providing them with was accurate.

Haggar Waking Up Zarkon

S3E07 ends with Haggar waking Zarkon up, yet we don’t see him up and around until S4E02, which takes place several months after the end of Season 3. Which raises the question of why Zarkon waited so long to get back into action? And why was Haggar pushing Lotor to be more active and visible in ruling the empire if Zarkon was awake to retake the throne?

On top of that, S4E03 opens with Haggar look at her old apperance as Honerva like it's the first time she's seeing her true face since the got her memories back:

Now, which sounds more logical? Haggar wakes Zarkon up in October 2414 and he spends the next eight months or so sitting on his ass doing nothing while his empire keeps crumbling under rebel uprising?

Or Lotor’s lack of involvement in the empire for months as seen in S4E01 Code of Honor making Haggar desperate enough to tap into Zarkon’s mind, at which point he immediately gets out of his bed and takes the throne back from Lotor in S4E03?

The latter would certainly be a logical sequence of events. And it would better explain why she’s suddenly looking at her old appearance as Honerva at the beginning of S4E03 if her recollection of her past was just yesterday than if she remembered months ago and is only now deciding to look at her old face.

Warlord Lahn Raiding Ranveig’s Base:

The Paladins visiting Drazan’s Clear Day festival appears to take place only a day or two after the end of S8E07. In that episode, the Altean robeast pilot the Atlas picks up is noted to be the 6th one they’ve brought aboard since leaving Oriande. Assuming they picked up one robeast pilot per day, this means that at least 6 days passed for the Atlas since the end of S8E06 Gensis.

Given that time dilation has only come up in the series when characters are travelling without using wormholes, we can probably assume that more than 6 days passed for the rest of the universe.

Since S8E08 appears to take place on Day 48 and is 24 quintants behind Planet Drazan thanks to time dilation, my best estimate would be that at least 12 days pass between the battle in Oriande and Clear Day.

Depending on when in May the Atlas visited Drazan for Clear Day, this would put the attack on Oriande somewhere between the end of April and the beginning of May.

S8E06 is indicated to take place only a day or so after the events of S8E05 The Grudge, which itself takes place only a short time after S8E04 Battle Scars, as the episode opens with the Paladins informing the Atlas of Olkarion’s fate.

Meanwhile S8E04 indicates it’s been only a few days for them since they left the Atlas at the end of S8E03, as Pidge notes that they’ve checked 11 star systems for signs of Robeasts in the last 3 days. Assuming that further time dilation occurred during S8E04 and S8E05, this would put the Atlas’ invasion of Warlord Lahn’s base on planet Ryker some time in April 2420.

When Lahn receives the transmission from the lost ship Klytax V-3, he mentions that he sent it and 14 other cruisers to scout Warlord Ranveig’s base from S5E05 for weapons six phoebs ago, which would be in October 2419.

Section V: The Complete Timeline

When you add everything together, the timeline of the VLD universe looks like this:

10,585-11,584 B.C.E.: The Galra Empire is formally established on the planet Feyiv with the coronation of Emperor Brodar in the first Kral Zera.

8186 B.C.E.: Coran’s grandfather builds the Castle of Lions. Coran accompanies him to a Balmera during the construction.

7614 B.C.E.: Kova is born

7606-7613 B.C.E.: A Trans-Reality Comet crash lands on the planet Daibazaal and a rift between realities is discovered at the crash site.

7604-7605 B.C.E.: 1 year before Allura’s birth, Honerva and Alfor initiate their first Quintessence experiment.

7603-7604 B.C.E.: Princess Allura is born, and Voltron makes its debut defending Daibazaal from the Rift Creatures.

7586 B.C.E.: Daibazzal and Altea are destroyed. Lotor is born

1414: The Galra Empire battles a technologically advanced species known as the Zel and decimates their population, but are unable to locate the Zelthronian homeworld.

2392, February 29: Takashi “Shiro” Shirogane is born

2394, May 25: Matt Holt is born

2396, January: Krolia crash lands on Earth

2396, October 23: Keith is born

2397, January 13: Hunk is born

2397, July 28: Lance is born

2398, April 03: Katie “Pidge” Holt is born

2400: Galaxy Garrison manages to map the human brain.

2406, August: Shiro begins taking classes at the Galaxy Garrison.

2408, August: Matt begins taking classes at the Galaxy Garrison.

2410, May: Shiro graduates from Galaxy Garrison’s cadet program

2410, August: Shiro continues his education at the Garrison

2411, March-May: Shiro visits Keith’s middle school as a recruiter for the Garrison sometime in the spring

2411, August: Keith, Lance, Hunk, James Griffin, Nadia Rizavi, Ryan Kinkade, and Ina Leifsdottir begin taking classes at the Galaxy Garrison

2412, May: Matt and Shiro graduate from their respective programs at the Galaxy Garrison.

2412, August: Shiro and Matt are selected to be part of the Garrison’s mission to Kerberos.

2413, July: The Garrison’s mission to Kerberos launches

2413, September: Sam Holt, Matt, and Shiro reach Kerberos and are captured by the Galra Empire.

2413, December: Galaxy Garrison publicly announces the disappearance of the Kerberos mission.

2414, April 28: Rebel forces battle the Galra Empire on the planet Marchanda, resulting in 127,098 rebel casualties while the planet is reduced to a barren wasteland. Matt uses this battle to fake his death and go into hiding in a hidden rebel listening post.

2414, May 11: A rescue mission from Galaxy Garrison arrives on Kerberos to retrieve the equipment left behind after the original mission’s disappearance.

2414, August: Katie Holt begins taking classes at the Galaxy Garrison under the name of Pidge Gunderson in order to find information about what happened to her father and brother.

2414, September 01: Shiro lands on Earth and is rescued from quarantine by Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge.

2414, September 02: Shiro, Keith, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge find the Blue Lion and leave Earth.

2414, September 03: The Paladins train to figure out how to form Voltron outside of combat.

2414, September 04: The Paladins meet the Arusian natives and defeat the Myzax Robeast. Sendak attacks the Castle of Lions that night.

2414, September 05: Pidge and the paladins retake the Castle of Lions from Sendak while Hunk and Coran retrieve a new Balmeran crystal.

2414, September 06: The Castle of Lions takes off from Arus and liberates Shay’s Balmera later that day following an encounter with Rollo and Nyma en route.

2414, September 07: Hunk takes Shay to watch her first sunrise. After leaving the Balmera, Coran takes the Paladins to the Karthulian system for a training exercise.

2414, September 08: The Paladins travel to the planet Krell to retrieve a Yalexian Pearl to trade for Coran’s safety.

2414, September 09-30: Sometime in September, Team Voltron investigates a Zelthronian distress signal.

2414, December: The Paladins coordinate with the Blade of Marmora to attack Central Command, grievously wounding Zarkon in the process. Shiro disappears and Lotor is summoned from exile to lead the empire while his father recovers.

2415, January:

Keith becomes the new pilot of the Black Lion and leads the team in their first battles against Lotor on Puig and Thayersix.

The Paladins find an Altean exploration ship caught in a rift between realities and recover the trans-reality comet stored in its cargo hold after visiting the Altean Empire reality.

Shiro makes his way back to the team after awakening aboard a Galran research vessel.

In the process of searching for the trans-reality comet, the Paladins come upon Lotor’s generals attacking a Galran outpost in the Ulippa system to steal a fragment of their Teludav.

Coran tells the Paladins the story of Voltron's origins and Zarkon's descent into tyranny.

2415, March-April: Keith and Kolivan discover a new strain of Quintessence being shipped across the Galra empire through a network of secret supply routes.

2415, May:

Keith leaves the team in order to focus on his work with the Blade of Marmora.

Voltron misses performing their air show at the planet Drazan’s Clear Day celebration, leading Coran to ingest a brain worm to help him do a better job coming up with ideas for their propaganda shows.

2415, July:

Pidge finally tracks down Matt and brings him back to the Castle of Lions.

Haggar uses her magic to reawaken Zarkon, in the process regaining some of her memories of her life as Honerva.

Zarkon learns that Lotor is building ships from a trans-reality comet and declares his son a fugutive.

Voltron launches an attack on Naxzella and other key planets to seize control of 1/3 of the Galra Empire’s territory in a single strike.

The Paladins finish liberating planet Pintos Sentos.

Voltron dismantles the Galra shipbuilding facility known as SPRAWL using intel provided by Lotor.

2415, August:

Voltron rescues Sam, and Zarkon is killed by Lotor in the process.

Lotor becomes the new emperor of the Galra in the thirty-fourth Kral Zera.

Sam returns to Earth and is placed under quarantine at Galaxy Garrison’s main base in Arizona.

Keith extracts Krolia from Ranveig’s base and they enter the Quantum Abyss in search of the origins of the new mystery Quintessence.

Lotor, and Allura enter Oriande, where Allura passes the trials of the White Lion and gains further knowledge of Altean Alchemy.

Team Voltron assist Commander Bogh and Lieutenant Lahn when their planet is attacked by Sendak’s Fire of Purification.

Sam is released from quarantine and reunited with his wife Colleen.

2415, September: Sam is debriefed by Galaxy Garrison’s Joint Chiefs regarding his experiences in space.

2416, March 01-08: After spending at least 2 years in the Quantum Abyss, Keith and Krolia return to the Castle of Lions with Romelle. The Paladins battle Lotor and are forced to sacrifice the Castle of Lions to seal off the Quintessence Field and save their entire reality.

2416, May-August: The Druids and other factions of the Galra Empire begin a campaign of retaliation against the Blade of Marmora and the Voltron Coalition.

2416, September: Matt contacts his parents on Earth to inform them of Voltron’s disappearance and warn them of the rebellion’s losses.

2417, March:

The Blade of Marmora make their last stand against the Druids. Both factions suffer heavy casualties, and Kolivan is taken captive by Macidus.

Sendak invades Earth.

2419, March:

Allura merges Shiro with his clone and the Paladins gather Fonatonium to help recharge their lions.

The Paladins set off for Earth and are captured by Zethrid and Ezor’s pirate crew while investigating an abandoned Blade of Marmora outpost.

The Paladins encounter Macidus and rescue Kolivan. Krolia leaves with Kolivan to search for other surviving Blades.

The Paladins attempt to recharge their lions.

2419, August: The Paladins reach Earth and quickly liberate the planet from Sendak’s occupation.

2419, October: Warlord Lahn sends Klytax V-3 and 14 other cruisers to salvage weapons from one of Warlord Ranveig’s bases.

2420, March:

The Paladins enjoy their last day on Earth before returning to space.

The IGF Atlas launches from Earth to liberate planets that remain under Galra rule.

2420, April: The Atlas attacks Warlord Lahn’s base on the planet Ryker.

2420, May 12-31:

Voltron and the crew of the Atlas attend planet Drazan’s Clear Day festival.

The Paladins confront Honerva at the source of all realities.

2421, May: The lions fly away to parts unknown.

Note: This timeline will be updated whenever I uncover further information.

Sources:

[1] Creating Voltron: Legendary Defender; June 10, 2016. https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/creating-voltron-legendary-defender/

[2] Tweet by Joaquim Dos Santos; October 12, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20200723131054/https://twitter.com/JDS_247/status/1050905860728213506

[3] The Ending of 'Voltron' Season 7, Explained by the Showrunners; Eric Francisco; August 10, 2018. https://www.inverse.com/article/47977-voltron-legendary-defender-season-7-netflix-ending-explained-by-showrunners-interview

[4] Joaquim Dos Santos & Lauren Montgomery Talk Voltron at Wondercon '17; When Nerds Attack; April 2, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZW1V2dYHgs

[5] High School in the United States - wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_school_in_the_United_States

[6] K-12 Education in the United States - Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-12_education_in_the_United_States

#voltron legendary defender #voltron meta #vld timeline #vld meta #long post #voltron timeline

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nepobabyeurydice · 11 months ago

Text

All We Have is Means

Summary: Kolivan watches these star-touched, ephemeral children break the galaxy and heals themselves. They somehow find themselves as part of this group. [to kolivan, star-damned, hope-crowned, and the children who name him friend and family]

Ao3

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

—Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

Kolivan was a leader. This has been their vocation for 132 wretched and blessed phoeb. They had survived eight purges, two hundred and sixteen assassination attempts, four near-misses with the Witch and had had naught but three betrayals in their ranks.

Kolivan was a leader in a sense that he came into from death and struggle and the gory nature of the flesh. There was no crown on his head, no title that could not be held by another, no absolution in a great and endless war.

Great and endless was also another way to describe the things needed to be done.

Heart-wrenching and disappointing was the term Kolivan would use.

For 10,000 phoebs they had battled, clawed at the edges of the Empire and within to fix things, to change them.

And then the rumors began.

Sendak is gone, the rumors whispered. It’s true, the reports sang. It’s true, it’s true.

But why, Kolivan thought. What could kill the scourge of the galaxy? What could hold down such a formidable foe when the politics of the Empire and the Blades could not?

Voltron, the galaxy screamed and Kolivan watched breathlessly as Olkari was snatched from the Empire’s claws in a transport ship.

It was like all his childhood dreams come to life.

The Destroyer, the Weapon, the Liberator, the Champion, and the Hero. The lost Altean Princess come back to life and millennia of knowledge in a shining white-blue castle that absorbed cannon rounds like it was nothing.

This, they thought, was going to be a problem.

…

“You did what?” Kolivan demanded and Ulaz didn’t even have the good sense to look abashed.

“I freed the Champion.” Ulaz repeated, his tail quivering with repressed amusement. “It was a gamble for sure but it has been replayed a hundred-fold.”

“It has been trapped on it’s home planet.” Kolivan felt compelled to point out. “It has repaid nothing.”

Ulaz smiled his damned and wicked smile the only way a man who had avoided being turned into a druid for five decaphoebs could.

“He’s the leader of Voltron, he has brought the rest of them together. Don’t you see? That little slave rat has been flying what we’ve been told belongs to Zarkon and Zarkon alone!”

…

Kolivan mourned Krolia when she vanished. She had been a good undercover agent, calm and cool headed and trustworthy in a way so few rarely are.

They had waited a year in hopes of her return but pushing three and it was time to turn off her beacon and pray for her to reunite with her family in Sa’s realm.

“Sir,” Rigun said, young and fresh but devoted to the cause. He’d be dead in four quintents. “We have a signal from someone claiming to be BM-217215, will you allow them entry or should I shoot them down?”

“Establish a signal,” Koliva said and noted down Rigun’s first instinct to go to extremes.

It took five ticks and Krolia’s face came up on screen. He had ever seen her look so desolate in his life.

…

“I gave it to someone.” Krolia muttered. Kolivan listened. “He’ll come looking for answers that you won’t be able to provide and you quite frankly, shouldn't.”

“Do you despise him much?” they asked.

She smiled, bitter and brittle. “No, but he will.”

…

Balmera, they thought. They captured the Empire’s main supplier and now the military must be going mad.

Olkari, Balmera, a planet of ice, and a primitive land. What can you do with them? You know nothing of now.

Except…

The Green Paladin could be called Death in truth.

For the Empire it sure felt like it as drones fell under her sway, soldiers were swiftly reprogrammed and turned upon themselves. The Green Paladin was a scourge of many names and many genders.

Kay-tee, Pidge, Holt, Gun-dear-son, Number 5. He/him, she/her, they/them, nothing/no one. The Destroyer of Safety

A more elusive beast than even Haggar in their agent’s opinions. All Kolivan could wonder though if the paladin was as insane as Slav and that’s why they were so feared.

…

The Weapon, the Red Paladin is frightening when you review the footage. He read body language like it was the easiest thing in the world, was fierce and fearless as he tore through those who had not fallen to the Green Paladin and hung back like a predator as he stood by the princess’s side.

Keith, is the only name they have for him. There is no threat behind such a name, it meant forest, vast and falling beneath the Empire’s heel.

Instead, it felt like Keith was the one devouring the heel whole and working his ways up to the jugular.

“He fights like a Galran soldier, sir.” Lizenne said, her furry purple ears flattening as the Red Paladin ripped apart drones with his bare hands. “I think that may be the most off putting part about him. The enemy acting like one of us.”

Lizenne was right, Kolivan knew this as the Red Paladin pulled a move straight out of the holovids of Zarkon’s rare battles and everyone in the room flinched back as though they had been burned.

That paladin right there was Voltron’s weapon, there was no other explanation for it. Why else keep something all teeth and red around?

…

Empathetic, Kolivan thought as the Yellow Paladin puttered around holding children high. Their cloak was warm and safe as they hid in the trees. Watching, waiting.

He comes back, the rumors croon, he comes back and saves as many as he can with the Castle-Ship until none are left.

The reports confirm the rumor as they often have these past few movements.

The other paladins take care of him, and in turn he takes care of them. He has seen the Yellow Paladin drag the Destroyer off to bed, seen the Black Paladin cede to the Yellow Paladin’s demands of better food, seen the Blue Paladin grip the Yellow Paladin as though the world was ending.

The princess and the weapon hung back but they never tried to harm what Kolivan would consider the weakest of them all for his cowardice.

“You know, old chap.” A voice below Kolivan said and they froze. “Zarkon tried that trick on Alfor, too. Us, Alteans, we tend to be a bit blind when it comes to disguises, making us naturally suspicious and critical of those who do.”

He met the blue gaze of an Altean with a truly grand red mustache and knew he had been made.

Kolivan reluctantly dropped down. The Altean didn’t even flinch at the heavy sound.

“I’ll let you be now, I assume you’re one of those Marmora chaps that the Empire keeps complaining about.” the Altean said and Kolivan frowned.

“Our existence is a secret to lower command.” they said. “There is no way you could possibly—“

The Altean chucked sadly. “He hasn’t removed Honerva’s codes from being an all access code. It’s strange to think Zarkon still loves her even after knowing what a monster he has become.”

Kolivan opened his mouth but the Altean was already gone.

…

“Voltronisattackingtheheartoftheempire.” Thace said. He looked wild around his quintessence exposed eyes.

“Repeat,” Kolivan commanded, already signaling for the Blades to prepare.

“Voltron is attacking the heart of the Empire.” Thace repeated, the echoing boom of a bolt hitting the station made his image flicker violently. “I’m deactivating the shield generator and leaving as quickly as possible.”

…

Thace doesn’t make it, Voltron doesn’t win but thousands of planets are rebelling, screaming out for freedom, for a new age away from the Empire and Kolivan believes that he finally knows what the princess’s stratagem is.

Hope, give them hope, give that hope a name and let them see that it’ll be there always.

Alteans were said to be idealists, rotten to the core, but for the first time, Kolivan thought he might be seeing the true nature of a dead land, and her name was Allura.

…

The Blue Paladin acted younger than all the others but his hands are steady as he took shots and didn’t twitch when one strayed too close.

This one isn’t a killer, Kolivan thought, but the means justify whatever end he’s trying to reach.

For that, the Empire would name him a hero in a different circumstance.

…

“An alliance,” the Champion said, “between Voltron and the Blades.”

“And what would we get?” Kolivan demanded and they could feel Lizenne’s relief, Modhri’s peace, Kuron’s sharp gaze and the will of their people who had named him leader.

Their people are everything. They would not give them up because Voltron just showed up and asked.

“An in onto which targets are next, the ability to use our resources for extractions and missions, the ear of the princess who plans to break this galaxy apart.” the Black Paladin said, pretty words falling from his lips.

The Red Paladin shifted from side to side and the Black Paladin nodded at him.

“Pidge is offering her cloaking tech,” the paladin said. “Hunk is offering his schematics to improvements he’s made to the fighter jets to be more stealthy. We’re offering the records of Zarkon's operations from the furthest reaches of the galaxy and…I’m offering myself up to your order.”

“You,” Kolivan said coldly, “are not Galran.”

“But,” Keith responded, “I am half.” And as though Sa herself was laughing at him, the boy, weapon, paladin, child pulled out a luxite blade that burst into a sword.

There’s silence as they all wonder who of their own has made this child.

The Black Paladin sighed, pinching his nose in a motion Kolivan is all too familiar with. “Keith, please, restraint. Voltron also offers the Blades the ability to get the first round of Lion-Paladin bonding in the event of one of our deaths.”

“Or all of them,” the kit added, “Pidge said—”

“Please stop listening to Pidge, her space floofs are proof enough that she’s a little crazy.”

“They’re adorable.”

“They’re vermin.”

…

“Hunk, Lance, Pidge, Keith, Shiro and Coran.” the princess said primly as she introduced her companions. “The Mice are around here somewhere, wreaking havoc and mayhem no doubt, and Pidge’s vermin is around here somewhere.”

The younger paladins all puff up indignantly.

“Hey!” Pidge cried in flagrant disrespect of the princess’s rank. “My babies are not vermin. Galileo may be a little steel-hungry but that isn’t his fault!”

The paladins all exchange doubtful looks behind the angry green ones back.

“Antok,” Kolivan said, motioning to his left. “and Lizenne.”

“Girl Galra, cool, haven’t seen any of them yet on the ships.” Hunk muttered and Lance nodded.

Lizenne flicked out a tendril of annoyance through the ambient quintessence and the paladins twitched violently, heads unerringly snapping to Lizenne’s direction as the princess glowed a light shade of pink.

The princess took a deep breath, shooting the paladins a look as they all muttered apologies and found other places to look. They were kinder by far than most people would be when confronted with a skilled former Druid.

“My apologies, my heritage makes me quite sensitive to any disturbances in the castle’s quintessence and the paladins are well—“

“—Hypersensitive to disturbances as a reflection of our need to be aware of where our family is at the moment.” Shiro interrupted and recited, sounding a little dead in his delivery.

“Haggar,” he said by way of explanation and everyone gave a sympathetic wince, even Kolivan.

The Witch was not known for her tender mercies.

…

“Are they typically so…uncoordinated?” Lizenne asked as the paladins stumbled through a training exercise on the holodeck.

The princess and Coran shook their heads, both frowning. Suddenly, Coran perked up and cupped his mouth.

“A TRIP TO YOUR BELOVED SPACE MALL FOR WHICHEVER GROUP GETS OUT OF THERE FIRST!”

Kolivan raised an eyebrow and opened their mouth to criticize but they are struck silent as Pidge physically vibrated and yelled like a madman at Keith who tore through the maze with Lance and Shiro hot on his heels. Hunk was yelling in what sounded like code at the blue paladin and in two doboshes, Keith emerged victorious.

“They’re still children.” Coran said by way of explanation and those on the stands shuddered.

They are ripping the Empire into sheds and yet they were children still.

…

Allura doesn’t trust easily, like them, she’s a fortress spun out of mourning pink and blazing blue. She sat them down and laid out a list on what actions should be taken in the event of her capture.

None. The pad said, let me die, let me die trying to kill him.

“You’re hope,” Antok said, sounding lost. “If you are lost—“

“Voltron is hope, the battles are hope, the fact that my paladins still live and breathe is hope. I am just a princess, a princess of nothing but dust. If I am to be captured he’ll want me. And I will either rip him apart or die trying. I promise you, dear Blade, I am rage, I am a vessel of rage that it is only my father’s love that keeps me from performing this very action right now. Are we clear or must I set the ship tp lock you in too in the event I’m gone longer than a movement?”

And finally, Kolivan saw.

…

Hope-crowned, rage-born. Allura met the gaze of this Galra rebel and felt something stir within her. This was a person who would not stop until they were dead, and she was a woman who would not stop until she had killed the man who had made her lose it all.

They had Keith, her paladin, her brother, her soldier. And through him the rest of them. But Allura had their motivations 'clocked’ and knew where to push.

She could afford a little transparency after all.

…

The Paladins start including Lizenne and Modhri in their games while Antok and Kolivan speak to the Coalition.

…

Pidge delivered a terrifyingly thorough 10,000 word report on the weaknesses of the Empire and how to improve and ruin them. She fixes all the issues she found in the Blade’s system and ignores any and all thanks.

…

Hunk berated half of the Coalition as Regris hid behind him and Antok stared after they insulted their prowess.

…

Shiro likes candy after a nightmare, Pidge needs tea, Hunk needs a high caffeine dose, someone needs to warn Lance about the meeting later and Keith wants a spar after.

Kolivan inhaled shakily at the simplicity of the knowledge. The fact that the water was already boiling and the trays were already out.

The children were no longer weapons and destroyers and caretakers to them by theirs. And Kolivan…Kolivan was perfectly alright with that.

…

After Zarkon, after Haggar and her monsters, after the collapse and rebuilding, Kolivan is at the children’s side. At Shiro’s wedding, at Keith’s pronouncement of Commander, at Lance’s reunions, at Pidge’s request, at Hunk’s dinners. They are there with Allura, washing the blood, Zarkon’s blood off her hands as she wept and wept.

Kolivan was a leader, star-damned and hope-crowned. Another one in an endless war

But there was an end, and at last, they can see, the means were right for this ending.

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #kolivan #fanfiction #fanfic

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