Darkside Report...

[TheBatMan]

As promised...

PG 1-2 http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/5061/2 ... 214705.jpg
PG 3-4 http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/3985/leondp.jpg
PG 5-6 http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/6052/claire.jpg
PG 7-8 http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/2066/stevejack.jpg
PG 9-10 http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/9274/manuella.jpg

BOW Page http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/6867/bowu.jpg
Timeline http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/1572/chronicles.jpg
Key words http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/7691/keyword.jpg

The pages I missed out are just two pages of zombies and the character relationship charts, absolutely no new info contained on those. 5th Survivors piccies will surfice for those I think.

[Bianca]

Thank you both for the images. I'm actually very relieved I didn't fork over the money for the collector's edition of the game. This Darkside Report isn't nearly as fascinating as I anticipated. It's still pretty, and I'd love to get my hands on it if they had sold it separately, but considering I almost spent 100+ dollars just out of curiosity for this booklet, I'm glad I resisted.

[yeahokbanned]

Thank you greatly, mr. You are an officer and a gentleman.

[Mr. Ashford]

What a let down that turned out to be. I was expecting a little more, perhaps concept art or more detailed character profiles.

I suppose I shouldn't expect much from CAPCOM, though.

[Zombie]

Thanks for the pics, the first link don't work.

[Carnivol]

Hope we're not gonna be expecting any trouble 'cause of those scans (we don't want no trouble 'round here!)

Not sure of the circumstances of that thing, but I suppose we should be in the green...

Timeline http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/1572/chronicles.jpg

I suppose this is the same ol' broken timeline as before
At least it contains the one glaring/obvious issue they kindly edited out of the RE5 version of the timeline (which I still firmly believe just slipped itself in two years early... back when they wrote the initial version of whatever doc they keep copy and pasting that timeline from. This little detail appears to be further proven by Darkside Chronicles and appears to back up the chain of events I wrote before.)

[News Bot]

I suppose this is the same ol' broken timeline as before
At least it contains the one glaring/obvious issue they kindly edited out of the RE5 version of the timeline (which I still firmly believe just slipped itself in two years early... back when they wrote the initial version of whatever doc they keep copy and pasting that timeline from. This little detail appears to be further proven by Darkside Chronicles and appears to back up the chain of events I wrote before.)

Well, here's almost everything.

http://projectumbrella.net/articles/No-01-History-RESIDENT-EVIL

[Carnivol]

Ahah. They're so unsure about the 198X events that they can't even get 'em consistent within their own stuff within a relatively short time period. I still swear by the only sensible/reliable composition being merging Code: Veronica X' files with expanded Darkside Chronicles info. Rather than relying on the incoherent mess found in all the manuals and guides.
('cause so far, the games have been pretty self-consistent. Which is what should count first and foremost. As one can see in my other post about RE5 being 2008, not 2009 as suggested by external media which successfully creates massive plot holes by adding a simple +1.)

**Note: Didn't bother double checking all 80s entries and only poked Björn to check if I was on the right track or not for a couple of them. Only looked for the matching ones that appear to be jumping around. Point wasn't really to derail into another "<sarcasm>GOOD JOB, GUYS!</sarcasm>, but since I started poking holes in the wonky and ever changing timeline they have... I just had to add some random thoughts and back 'n forth stuff. Tried to organize it, but it's probably still a mess **

Spoiler:

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DSC thingy there appears at first glance to be the same as UC's web version... so if we look at them all;

UC/DSC Supplemental Timeline:
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1981 - July
-Alexia graduates at age 10.
(This would additionally mean Alexia and Alfred should technically be born between January and July of 1971.)

1982 - No date
-The head of the Ashford family, Alexander, suddenly vanishes.
(No date: Hard to tell what to get from this... but I guess it's Q1, based on the general chain of events and the fact that it's listed before the April entry... or maybe the layout designer is an idiot... beats me.)

1982 - April:
-Suggests Alfred became head of family at Age 12.
(As common sense suggests - this is impossible. Alfred was born in '71. He can't be 12 in '82. No matter how you twist and turn it. This entry was also just conveniently stripped out of the History of RE copy of it.)

1983 - December:
-Alexia enters cryo-sleep.

CVX Supplemental Timeline:
Spoiler:

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1981 - No date
-Alexia graduates at age 10.
(Unlike other versions, this one doesn't list a date.)

1983 - Q1
-Alexander becomes a test subject and is evt. declared a failure.
(this part is pretty much just paraphrasing stuff from Alfred's Diary)

1983 - April
-Alfred becomes head of family at Age 12
(This would only be possible if we're assuming his birthday is between Jan-Apr.)

1983 - December
-Alexia enters cryo-sleep

RE5/BH5 Supplemental Timeline (History of Resident Evil):
Spoiler:

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1981 - July
-Alexia graduates at age 10.

1982 - No date (March in JP manual)
-Alexander becomes a test subject and is evt. declared a failure.

1983 - December
-Alexia enters cryo-sleep

(note the absence of Alfred becoming head of family)

Okay, with that out of the way, let's look at the 3 key points that are relative to one another. All of which somehow keeps being shuffled around in the supplemental material. No worries! Typos happen to the best of us! But are they really typos and not just accidental incrrect assumptions? Let's try to take a look!

Curiosity #1: Alfred being declared head of the Ashford family.
Spoiler:

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Logic suggests this presumably happens because he's the "last" of the Ashfords. The Butler's Letter kinda backs this up. It's pretty obvious all the way, though, that Alexia is "on paper" the pre-decided successor to the family. So for Alfred to be picked over Alexia, Alexia is likely to be gone.

The Butler's Letter suggests the entire thing was hastily forced onto Alfred, and that he (Alfred - Not the butler!) nearly lost his sanity from the sorrow of having lost all of his family at once (Alexia + Alexander). The use of "at once" is from the Butler's Letter. Which certainly indicates that these two disappearances happened relatively close to one another. How close... we don't know (yet) or do we?

Of course, we know Alfred and Alexia already had their social antennas broken off pre-birth, that Alexander was wacked by those two and later declared missing/dead, and that Alexia's death was also faked. We also know that Alfred didn't like Alexia's idea of entering cryo-sleep and that once she was gone he just got worse... <opinion>'cause the Ashford Twins just plain suck.</opinion>

Curiosity #2: Alexander's disappearance.
Spoiler:

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Alfred's Diary partially documents Alexander's fate to a certain degree. Meaning we know at least when in the year 198X he should be considered "out of the game." In other words, Alexander's disappearance and the viral experimentation on his body takes place early in the whatever year X is.

Curiosity #3: Alexia's research.
Spoiler:

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As far as I can remember, the Butler's Letter and Alfred's Diary are the only documents that touch this subject. All we know is that she says she needs 15 years for her research and she's out by the time Chris drops by to say hi.

Round #2 - Fight!;

Q. When did Alfred become head of family?
Spoiler:

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For Alfred to be 12 when he's made head of family, he must either be born between Jan-Apr 1971 for it to be in 1983, but if he's born later than April 1971, this event would take place in 1984. Birthdays, unlike other events, are a thing that is hardly ever rounded to nearest whole.

Q. When did Alexander die?
Spoiler:

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Butler's Letter says it happened "15 years ago," Alfred's Diary has no dates. So far, those two documents in Code: Veronica have been good companions, but can they still help us? The various timelines jump between 1982 and 1983. Just like Alfred becoming head of family. Of course they can still help! We've just scratched off 1982, that's for sure.

Can we do another?
Not entirely... or maybe?

One. Two. Three... Please note - all dates regarding Alexander have been missing and juggled around in supplemental material up to this point, just like the Alfred dates have been too - Darkside Chronicles introduced the controversial video showing Alexander, alive and breathing... celebrating Christmas 1983.

To many this may seem wrong on so many levels. Anyway, bear with me. Regardless of when this video takes place, it's safe to assume that next on the menu is Alfred's Diary. Which means we can in this case slap 1984 onto all dates in that diary if we're to acknowledge Darkside Chronicles. This will of course require some cherry picking, but then again... this is how things are done with the early RE games too. You had to play them several times through with different characters/scenarios to get the full overview. It's at least not unreasonable to treat the Chronicles series in a similar manner.

Anyway, before we seal this, we need to ask ourselves one thing; Where does Scott Harman (that's the butler, fyi) fit into this? He hardly does... unless we're to assume he wrote the letter to Alfred and bailed shortly before Claire arrived. Which isn't unreasonable to believe, given recent events. Since we're dealing with what I guess we could call "events," suggesting Scott left Rockfort in Q4 - 1998, thus making anything between late 1983 and early 1984 "15 years ago."

Q. Where does this leave Alexia?
Spoiler:

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This is the tricky part of the equation!

Q. Haven't Code: Veronica told us she went into cryo-sleep in December 1983?
A. No. It never did. It did however use the magical number 15 a good few times. Including as being a measurement for describing the supposed length required for her cryo-sleep.

Q. Where does the December 1983 date come from?
A. Initially; Supplemental material. Which earlier in this post was proven to be unreliable as far as deciding on dates from the early 80s goes.

Q. This date is however a constant in the timelines.
A. Yes, but it's also the easiest piece of the mathematical puzzle.

Q. What are we gonna do?
A. Since this isn't some attempt at making sense out of the Zelda series, we're not to assume multiple timelines and stuff like that . We're actually gonna take all supplemental material and throw it out the window (for now).

Now. We're at a fresh start! Let's play detectives!
The last entry concerning Alexia I could find appears to be from our dearly beloved Alfred's Diary. April 22nd, barely less than 2 months after Alexander was labeled a failure, Alexia has already found what she believes is the solution to the problem and is ready to use herself as the next test subject.

Q. Where do we go from there?
A. Well... we can look at circumstantial stuff... but no real evidence...

-We know Alfred was made head of family, conveniently around this very same time. We can thus presume Alexia's death was at least faked at this point.

-We don't know when Alexia went into cryo-sleep, but these two are without doubt impatient bastards who obviously worked around the clock. So if she went into cryo-sleep at April 1984, that's at least closer to 15 years than December 1984 is. That's a fact.

-Alfred had a major boner for his sister. Given the circumstances, he might have cut the plug on everything and rushed things as far as Alexia's awakening goes. 15 years or less, not more.


At the end of the day, the only thing that suggests December 1983 is if you assume 15 years is to be taken literally. But this does however leave some gigantic potential plot holes around to be filled and odd restructuring that needs to be done.

-Alfred would have to be head of Ashfords in '83.
-Alfred's Diary would have to be 1983 too.
-Alexia's death must've possibly been faked as much as 8 months prior to her entering cryo-sleep.
-The Butler must've left under circumstances that clearly lack a proper and reasonable explanation (since he even considered suicide as a way out of the situation)
-Alexander would have to be dead a year prior to what's suggested by Darkside Chronicles.

So in order for one tiny event, as explained by media that couldn't get the related events right (several times), you'd have to rewrite several details (ignoring the way they are presented in the games) and create a series of questionable things that don't have answers.

Where are we now?
Spoiler:

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1971 - Date Unknown - Ashford twins are born.
1983 - December - Alexander fears for his life and soon disappears (this may also be early Q1 1984@disappearing).
1984 - Quarter 1 - Alexander is declared dead - Both as a viable test subject and as a human being to the public.
1984 - April Part 1 - Alexia's death is faked.
1984 - April Part 2 - Alfred, the last remaining Ashford, is made head of family.
1984 - ????????? - Alexia enters Cryo-sleep.

This is where everyone else come in!
For the sake of crushing my arguments;

Go play some Code: Veronica (or X/Complete) and/or Darkside Chronicles.

What're we looking for are;

Challenge #1:
Spoiler:

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Scourge for factual info on Alfred's life in the 80s. That challenges my claims.

Challenge #2:
Spoiler:

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Scourge for factual info on Alexander's disappearance that challenges my claims.

Challenge #3:
Spoiler:

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Find facts on Alexia's time between April and December of the year she was frozen. Bonus points if you find an actual year.

I'll consider custom user titles for people who actually can prove the supplemental timelines to be "correct," using only the assets from the games to prove it. I'll be needing hard evidence. Not just your "word." YouTube links, image uploads, etc.

Only game content accepted. In-game inconsistencies are welcome. I'll not accept other sources than game content unless they're the very design docs for the game. Though, you may refer to external media as long you don't create any inconsistencies by doing so.

[fake edit]
Also just noticed that I had this window open for 5 hours without hitting submit (got interrupted!) and it's now almost 5:15 AM at night. I'm so not in any shape to double check this so I'll just hit submit on this and see how it looks when I get back later

[Mr. Ashford]

Carnivol, that was a very interesting read. To support, or perhaps go against what you said about Alexia being in stasis, there's Darkside Chronicles Alexia's claim that Alfred "didn't wake her up on time." This means he was either too later or too early.

However, in the original Code: Veronica, I'm not sure how the machines were activated. It could have been due to Alfred being in the right place at the right time, or they were voice activated. So this is something I feel needs to be cleared up before any assumptions can be made.

EDIT: To add to the DSC theory, in the 'Lonely Island' cutscene, Alfred mentions that "this year is going to be special" but there's something he's forgetting. Given that the events take place in late December, it's easy to assume he's talking about 1999, the year Alexia should have awoken with your timeline.

[News Bot]

However, in the original Code: Veronica, I'm not sure how the machines were activated. It could have been due to Alfred being in the right place at the right time, or they were voice activated. So this is something I feel needs to be cleared up before any assumptions can be made.

They activate because in the original CODE: Veronica, December 27th 1998 was the date Alexia was scheduled to wake up. Meaning she went into stasis on December 27th 1983, which is what all official material (including Darkside Chronicles) runs with. If 15 years is actually an approximation rather than an exact time limit, she could have gone into stasis early in 1984. But in the original scenario, she was going to wake up at that exact moment anyway. This isn't actually a ridiculous concept, as Wesker attacked Rockfort Island because he knew Alexia was going to wake up that day through information obtained by a H.C.F. spy. However, he didn't find Alexia on Rockfort because she wasn't there and the information was innacurate. The spy is assumed to be Alfred's secretary, which is really the only position one would have to be close enough to find such info.

There is still an obvious fallacy in Darkside Chronicles inexplicably changing Alexander's disappearance to Christmas or Boxing Day 1983, despite CODE: Veronica and all of its supplemental material pointing to Spring 1982. I would vote to just ignore the cutscenes as a whole, considering they don't actually happen anyway.

EDIT: To add to the DSC theory, in the 'Lonely Island' cutscene, Alfred mentions that "this year is going to be special" but there's something he's forgetting. Given that the events take place in late December, it's easy to assume he's talking about 1999, the year Alexia should have awoken with your timeline.

CODE: Veronica takes place on December 27th 1998. I'd say you are correct and he is talking about 1999 - only four days away. Still, officially, Alfred was not meant to wake Alexia up.

[GEORGE TREVOR]

I feel this is just another cut-scene inconsistency within the whole DSC 're-telling' of canon circumstances ~ However, I am a little uncompfortable with ignoring this inconsistency (Alfred instigating Alexia's awakening) with others such as Marvin being in the precinct hall rather than the office ~ the former being far more a significant plot change & time line event ~ I always accepted that Wesker was obviously promted in his attack of Rockfort with the knowledge of Alexia's impending revival, and Alfred'd death scene was far more enegmatic occuring at the moment of this awakening, at his sister's feet ~ just bad/good timeing.
We accept that the Remake retcons events in the former PS1 RE, so does DSC CVX chapters retcon the former gamecube CVX ? My vote goes to the original, this time.
The most reliable time-line has Alexia's revival as being on time, not too early ~ but maybe the process still needed to be operated & started, as Alfred did in DSC, knowing it was the right time.

[Carnivol]

We accept that the Remake retcons events in the former PS1 RE, so does DSC CVX chapters retcon the former gamecube CVX ? My vote goes to the original, this time.

The thing is that DSC never really retcons anything as far as that event goes in the original game, 'cause as far as I can see there actually appears to be absolutely nothing in the original game (or the X re-release) that ever even as much as indicates that she went into cryo-sleep in December (although she's already got the ABC done by late April, presumably of whatever year she enters cryo-sleep.) If this supposedly exist, anyone's free to show it to me - as I'd absolutely love to see it.

This isn't actually a ridiculous concept, as Wesker attacked Rockfort Island because he knew Alexia was going to wake up that day through information obtained by a H.C.F. spy.

There's no reason to doubt him being there for Alexia (on behalf of his new employer), but going by the cutscene when he gives Chris a little surprise - it doesn't exactly seem like it was part of his plan that she was gonna be awake already when he came to get her. Especially not considering how his exact words are "Alexia? No! She's already fully awake." Everything involving Chris and Alexia after seems to be improv. First asking her to join him, to then have "his men" grab Steve's body instead. So I'd say it's very likely the plan was for him to drop by, steal her while she was still in a cryo-sleep, then bail out: Scenety scene (2:22) and sceny scene #2 (3:38)

[Guest]

Please, does someone have this background-image, in blue? I'm making my version (PSD) of this document in spanish.

Thanks

[Carnivol]

Can't you just open it in an image editing application (such as Adobe Photoshop, since you're mentioning .PDSs) and then go Image -> Adjustments -> Color Balance?
(Alternatively make a second layer on top of it, make it entirely blue and then adjust the transparency/opacity)

[Guest]

Can't you just open it in an image editing application (such as Adobe Photoshop, since you're mentioning .PDSs) and then go Image -> Adjustments -> Color Balance?
(Alternatively make a second layer on top of it, make it entirely blue and then adjust the transparency/opacity)

I admit it, I was overcome by laziness

But I asked to see if anyone had the original.

EDIT: My result here (sucks)