Story chronology

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel BL:TPS Discussion
#1

so i was digging through the borderlands story line across all three of the games and i found that the story doesn’t make sense. in Borderlands 2 you find a n audio log about the the first set of vault hunters showing up and jack telling angel what to tell them. with that in mind it doesn’t make sense that if jack had lost his mind before the first game but completely disregarding the pre-sequel. but if the pre-sequel had happened before the first game how did Hyperion get the eye of the destroyer.

1 Like
#2

I like to think that Jack wasn’t a complete ‘baddy’ at that point, he was still somewhat mean to Angel in the way he made her control the first vault hunters but I don’t think he had evil intentions then.

He just wanted to profit from the opening of the vault. Only during the presequel his intentions change from trying to make pandora civil to going on a revenge quest to kill anyone who opposes him.

1 Like
#3

If that’s the audio log I’m thinking of, it’s part of the “get to know Jack” series and it links back to the beginning of BL1, yes, but so does the whole sequence. And Jack’s not trying to kill them there - he’s trying to get them to go open the Vault of the Destroyer (not The Warrior - seriously, they’re nothing alike!). That audio log series actually covers a long time period (predating BL1 to final cut scene of Jack and Tassiter on Helios)

And that works. We know during TPS that Angel is still quite young (there’s a picture of her on Jack’s desk) but that she’s nowhere to be seen, and that Jack is still trying to figure out where the Vault on Elpis is.

2 Likes
#4

After the first but before the second.

2 Likes
#5

Like above, your chronology is a little off. Acurrate numbering as far as being crucial to lore:

Borderlands
Borderlands 1.125 Armory of General Knoxx
Borderlands 1.25 Claptral’s Robolution
Borderlands 1.5 - The Pre-Sequel
Borderlands 1.75 - Claptastic Voyage
Borderlands 2
most of the BL dlc follows the chronology of its release but the only ones I recall having character introductions and story elements that matter are:
2.125 Scarlett’s Booty
2.25 Torgue’s Crater
2.5 Hammerlock’s Hunt
2.675 Tiny Tina’s Assault
2.75 Wattle Gobbler
2.875 Son of Crawmerax

2.9 Tales From the Borderlands

Echo logs in each game all refer to varying points across the timeline before and during the games, and that’s where the chronology breaks down. Narration in the intros, outros, and eveb in game, is also outside of the in-game chronology as well, inclusive of some cut scenes.

3 Likes
#6

2.95 Borderlands Easter Eggs in Battleborn Story Ops.

5 Likes
#7

Well, do we actually know where in the chronology those transmissions take place. There haven’t been Guardians on Pandora since BL1 other than Watcher in the epilogue at the end of TPS. If the Children of the Vault are just a Vault worshiping cult that isn’t tied to a corporation, that have been moving in the shadows, like the Fire based Cults in BL1 & 2, or the Children of Helios in Tales anything is possible . If it’s another name for the Cult of the Vault who do all the carvings and they are going to build out that lore, it could be something else. I would stick the easter eggs in with Echo Logs for now. They point to the future of the game, but from what point in the past?

#8

I though it was pretty clear since it references Tannis, the multiple vaults (implied for me anyway, as seen at the end of BL2), and that all ties in nicely with that ominous tag line from the Red Sentinel right in the final TPS cut-scene (which is taking post-BL2 and post-TFtB)

So yes, I’ll stand by my 2.9 timeline rating.

1 Like
#9

Well, thing is, there have always been multiple Vaults considering Atlas & Pandora were known to have one each. By the time of TPS it establishes there are at least three, so why not more? Tales, which seems to run intercut with the prologue and epilogue of TPS (Brick & Mordecai vs. Athena shenanigans).

The end of BL2 just confirms what already seemed to be implied. Tannis has been studying Vaults and misleading the Vault Hunters since BL1, and is totally absent in the parts of the story that followed after the Campaign of Carnage IIRC.

So, I almost take it that each easter egg could be from a different point in time, or as a whole they could be from after BL1 or TPS or BL2 or Tales because at any of those points access to the available Vaults is restricted by a company in power, so the next know Vault to pursue that may be accessible might be the one that was controlled by a defunct company the furthest away from where all the action is, Promethea.

I am more inclined to connect the Children of the Vault and the Seraphs/ Guardians since they seem to be the only aspect of the Eridians legacy that coexist with humans peacefully under the right conditions.

But that’s certainly head canon as much as inferences from the games directly. We talked about those easter eggs before and I mentioned the BL1 echo logs talking about Tannis negatively, so that also flavors my perspective.

#10

There’s really only one Battleborn easter egg, since it was distributed over the set of story ops. And it clearly points to Promethea.

1 Like
#11

Well, the morse code messages don’t read as one coherent statement, and more a series of smaller ones, like dispatches relayed out in succession over an undisclosed period of time like messages in bottles.

And the graphiti easter egg reinforces the harder to decipher coded message but it stands alone as well.

Now I wonder if they will ever broach the idea of a shared universe to give the messages context beyond a developer using an available property as a means to mutually hype one in development and itself?

#12

As I recall, that was a definite “No” from Randy Varnell.

1 Like
#13

I can see why. This may sound contrary, but the universe of Battleborn felt more clearly fleshed out, at least as far as interstellar lifeforms/ races and their connected lore by virtue of character design alone. It benefits from being a newer game, with the experience of the previous ones in tow. That and a vastly larger pool of characters having to be created.

If they had dropped those characters and skills into the Borderlands 2 levels to mob with it could be pretty fun.