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intensionsuspension · 4 years

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Death Stranding Timeline

I put together a rough timeline for the overarching narrative of Death Stranding. I was able to piece together some parts of the timeline almost approximately, but admittedly, much of it is based on headcanon and conjecture due to parts of the lore being rather scant. Regardless, I tried to make it fun and I utilized invented details to enrich the worldbuilding. I also put together a few paragraphs explaining my methods in obtaining the more approximate dates. I’ve seen people talking about character age headcanons and attempting to pinpoint the duration of the Death Stranding, and I think I got pretty close to the truth with a few of these. Anyway, enjoy, tell me what you think. The full timeline is below the cut.

Death Stranding Timeline

August 25th, 1975 - Bridget Strand is born

November 27th, 1979 - Clifford Unger is born

August 16th, 1984 - Lisa Bridges is born

May 18th, 1985 - John Blake McClane is born

February 7th, 1995 - Deadman is ‘born’

March 13th, 1995 - Amelia Strand is ‘born’

May, 1997 - Bridget Strand earns a Bachelor’s degree in political science

August, 1997 - Clifford Unger enlists in the United States Army

October, 1997 - Bridget Strand becomes a political consultant under the campaign staff of

democratic senator Scott Faulkner

June, 1999 - Clifford Unger is one of 7,000 ground troops deployed during the end of the Kosovo War

September, 2000 - Clifford Unger joins the United States Army Special Forces

September, 2001 - Clifford Unger participates in the invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 terrorist attacks

March, 2003 - Clifford Unger participates in the invasion of Iraq

September, 2003 - John Blake McClane enlists in the United States Army

November, 2003 - Bridget Strand is promoted to campaign manager of democratic senator Scott Faulkner’s reelection campaign

May, 2005 - Clifford Unger earns a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice

May, 2006 - Lisa Bridges earns a bachelor’s degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Law Enforcement

September, 2006 - John Blake McClane joins the United States Special Forces

January, 2007 - Lisa Bridges begins her career as a Law Enforcement Ranger at Whitewater State Park near Rochester, MN

April, 2007 - Clifford Unger is promoted to the position of commanding officer (captain) within ODA 1116, Alpha Co, 1st Btn, 1st SFG

May, 2008 - John Blake McClane earns a bachelor’s degree in Strategic Intelligence

November, 2008 - Bridget Strand is elected into a democratic seat in the United States Senate

July, 2009 - John Blake McClane is transferred to ODA 1116 following the death of one of its Intelligence and Operations Sergeants

June 30th, 2010 - Heartman (Rudolph ‘Rudy’ Jacobsen) is born

July 16th, 2011 - Lucy Dimmonds is born

December 18th, 2011 - Iraq War ends

October, 2012 - Clifford Unger meets Lisa Bridges while on military leave, encountering her in Whitewater after he stumbles across her escaped German Shepherd,Victoria. A romance soon blossoms.

November, 2012 - Scott Faulkner and his running mate Bridget Strand win the presidency

October, 2014 - Clifford Unger and Lisa Bridges are married

February, 2015 - Lisa reveals to Cliff that she is pregnant, he retires from active duty to be with his family

March 15th, 2015 - Death Stranding occurs

May 29th, 2015 - Målingen and Lockne Leifsdottir are born

June, 2015 - President Faulkner creates the government organization ‘Bridges’, which is designed to create a network across the fractured America in order to administer aid to the civilian population. Its other, classified purpose is to research the cause of the Death Stranding and to synthesize potential solutions to the social, economic, and infrastructural issues it has caused.

July, 2015 - John Blake McClane leaves the United States Army Special Forces to pursue a career opportunity as head of Bridges security. Much of Bridges’ security personnel is comprised of military veterans.

August, 2015 - President Faulkner is killed during a voidout that obliterates Manhattan Island. The voidout is caused by the death of a stillmother during the preliminary embryonic chiral experimentation trial runs conducted by Bridges, experiments which would go on to become the blueprints for the ‘Bridge Babies’, also known as ‘BB’ units. The existence of the embryonic experimentation being brought to the public eye causes widespread outrage, and the research is discontinued. Following Faulkner’s death, his vice president, Bridget Strand, succeeds the presidency. While the embryonic chiral experimentation is officially discontinued, President Strand continues it in secret, desperate to discover the secrets of the new element ‘chiralium’ and its vast potential to bolster technological development.

September, 2015 - Cliff and Lisa are hit by a drunk driver while driving home one night after attending a play. Both receive serious injuries, Cliff; a shattered collarbone, humerus, and ulna, and Lisa; severe whiplash and head trauma, which leaves her comatose. Miraculously, the 7 month old fetus is largely unharmed.

October, 2015 - Cliff enrolls his family in an experimental medical care program that promises to utilize state of the art technology to provide them the best chance at recovery, as recommended to him by an old military buddy. An emergency C-section is conducted, and the 28 week old Baby Bridges ‘BB’ is placed in a portable pod synchronized with his mother’s heartbeat.

Bridget Strand acts as overseer of the experiments in secret, under the pseudonym Dr. Samsa. She hides her true identity behind a steel masquerade mask.

February, 2016 - Cliff grows increasingly irritated and untrusting of Dr. Samsa as she continues to avoid his questions and lie to him. BB is kept in his pod long past his due date and prevented from growing through the usage of hormone blockers.

December 23rd, 2016 - When John realizes that Cliff’s family is being harvested for chiral experimentation, he warns Cliff of what is going to be done to them. When Cliff tries to escape the facility with his baby, he and his entire family are killed. Baby Bridges is revived by Amelie on the beach, and he is christened ‘Sam’. Bridget Strand makes the decision to raise him as her own, as he was no longer a BB candidate after Cliff released him from his pod. After this unnatural resuscitation, the laws of nature are made gravely upset. Sam becomes the first repatriate and DOOMS sufferer, one who can travel between Earth and Hades and detect the spectral dead using his 5 senses. The dead, the Beached Things, return physically to the land of the living and claim more human souls, dragging the damned with them as they returned to the other side. Timefall, rain that rapidly ages anything it touches, begins to fall in showers across the American continent.

December 31st, 2016 - Sam Strand is ‘born’

March, 2017 - John Blake McClane fakes his death with the help of President Strand. He returns to the broken political scene under the pseudonym Die-Hardman and becomes a personal aide to the president.

October 1st, 2017 - Fragile (Giselle Depardieu) is born

November 8th, 2019 - Higgs Monaghan is born

April, 2020 - The United Cities of America (UCA) is established, as the state governments and boundaries have all but crumpled as a result of continuous voidouts, and only a few key cities remain.

June, 2020 - Deadman earns the position of Bridges head coroner as a result of his government-sponsored artificial personhood program.

May, 2033 - Lucy Dimmonds earns a Bachelor’s degree in psychology

March, 2034 - Lucy Dimmonds becomes a licensed therapist

February, 2038 - Sam has his first meeting with his therapist, Lucy Dimmonds. In the following months, the two begin to form a close and unprofessional relationship.

December, 2039 - Sam and Lucy are married, and Lucy retires from her practice.

February, 2040 - Lucy contracts DOOMS after becoming pregnant with her and Sam’s child Louise. She begins to have horrible visions of the apocalypse, which Bridget assures her are real portents of the future.

September, 2040 - Lucy chooses to commit suicide in order to avoid bringing a child into the world where the apocalypse is imminent. Her death causes a voidout, and Sam, who was busy making deliveries at the time, returns home to a smoking crater; all that’s left of his hometown. The survivors eye him warily and he can tell that they blame him for the disaster. In shame and grief, Sam resigns from Bridges and begins work as an independent porter. He changes his name to Sam Porter Bridges.

January 11th, 2045 - President Bridget Strand dies of metastasized uterine cancer. The plot of Death Stranding begins.

References and Reasoning Used in Creating Timeline

Deadman mentions that WW1 took place more than 100 years ago, meaning that the present day in Death Stranding is past 2014-2018

Deadman mentions that WW2 took place a century ago, which places the timeframe of Death Stranding’s narrative anywhere from 2039-2045. I opted for the late estimate as to make Sam a little older and give the timeline some room to breathe

Based on appearance, behavior, and age in relation to other characters (he was a baby when Cliff, Die-Hardman, and Bridget were all mature adults), I placed Sam at around 28-30 years old. If he were any older, characters such as Die-Hardman and Bridget would appear much too young in the present day. This would also make the period in which the Death Stranding occurred around 30 years.

Deadman explains that Clifford Unger took part in the Kosovo War, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War. This would place his years of service from 1999 to right before the Death Stranding and Sam’s birth, around 2015. We know his military career did not begin any earlier, as there is no mention of him serving during the Balkan Wars or Persian Gulf War. Assuming that he was around 18 for his first deployment during the Kosovo War, it can be pretty reasonably inferred that Cliff was born around 1979, and was therefore around 36-37 when he was killed. This lines up nicely with the age restrictions surrounding combat in the United States Army Special Forces (ages 20-36). Essentially, Cliff must have been 36-37 in 2016, for if he was any older he would not have been only recently retired from combat, and if he was any younger he would not have been old enough to have served during the Kosovo War.

Bridget Strand’s age is determined similarly. As both vice president and president, she would have had to have been 35 years of age or older, if she was vice president in 2012, she would have had to have been at least 35. I placed her at 37, which is still very young, but not quite the youngest on record. But, since she assumes the presidency in 2016 following the death of the president, she would have become president at 41 years of age, which would make her the record-holder of the title of youngest American president. Assuming she is 41 in 2016, she would be 70 years of age at the time of her death in 2045, which seems reasonable.

Most other aspects of the timeline are built around these key definable pieces of the puzzle and are subject to change as more lore is revealed.

Essentially, this is full of headcanons that I’ll be happy to alter if and when we get more information.

#death stranding #death stranding headcanons #death stranding spoilers #sam porter bridges #cliff unger #cliff death stranding #fragile death stranding #die-hardman #mama death stranding #lockne death stranding #hideo kojima #death stranding lore #amelie strand #bridget strand #higgs monaghan #beached things #chiralium #death stranding timeline #death stranding timefall

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whatsarasaid · 4 years

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What are your thoughts on Lockne and Målingen? By the way, I just found out that those are the names of two impact craters in Sweden.

It’s strange to me that they’re named after impact craters in a world where craters are associated with voidouts, and therefore death. I wonder if Kojima thought through the implications of that. Even though it’s explained their parents were NASA scientists who thought Lockne and Målingen represented a connection to the broader universe, there is an ominous connotation to the names within the world Kojima built. I feel as though he muddles his own symbolism at times.

As far as the two of them together, the idea of mirroring—chirality—is essential to Death Stranding. As twins, Lockne and Målingen are the same yet not. Just as mirrored/chiral objects are the same yet not. That might be why Kojima named them after craters. Voidouts occur where matter and antimatter meet—like a pair of hands being pressed together. Lockne and Målingen—human mirrors—eventually blend and a “crater” should result but does not on account of their shared Beach.

I do find it interesting that Sam distinctly differentiates between the two, even after their merger. Mama is the first person Sam voluntarily touches in the game. After he cuts the umbilical cord tethering her to her daughter, he not only catches Mama but also holds her hand. While preventing a concussion is human decency, comforting her is an option. One he chooses to take. It’s not just a squeeze either. He holds her hand until the end of the cutscene.

Sam does not allow Lockne the same privilege, however. In the third act of the game, she runs up to hug Sam when he delivers cryptobiotes for Fragile (it’s obviously Lockne, Qualley has a softer lilt for her), but instead of accepting it, he pushes her away. Despite Lockne’s body now housing Mama as well, Sam does not feel as though he has bonded with Lockne, and so revokes the intimacy he would have allowed for Målingen.

#death stranding #mama (death stranding)#lockne #målingen #sam porter bridges #meta #asks #anonymous

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madammaria · 4 years

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So, Death Stranding. Weird game to say the least.

—— Warning for spoilers and bad writing from me if you care ——

The most prevalent and obvious emotion I got from playing this game was loneliness. Sure you have BB with you, but they’re a BABY so not much for company/conversation. The main gameplay loop is hauling your ass along with various packages across the varyingly blighted and barren landscape that’s the corpse of the USA which is so diminished to be the United Cities of America. CITIES. Not even states anymore just CITIES.

And all of it is done against the silence of the world. Sure there’s a music player because Kojima wanted to share these cool tunes he put in the game and at appropriate points of the story music just plays, but despite the tech Sam doesn’t even have a mobile music player so no car karaoke for you.

As for other people? The closest you get to interacting with other players is seeing what they left behind. Packages/buildings/bodies in the Seam AND THAT IS ALL. Physical interaction? Fuck no, so don’t expect to be able to plop around a timefall shelter with three other players and do funny dances. Talking? Closest you get is shouting into the void and hearing an echo which might just be you imagining your own voice. Some of the closest and most direct help I got was seeing phantoms toss me items in late boss fights, but even those only wear the names of a player but don’t have their hand behind it.

This makes Sam meeting the NPCs all the more precious and connective for me. I don’t mean the usual delivery action of talking to their hologram, but having two characters ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY IN THE SAME ROOM INTERACTING. One of the earliest moments of this for me was meeting the Chiral Artist’s daughter. Seeing that door pop open and watching her walk out? God! I wanted nothing more than to reach out and shake her hand but of course I couldn’t because she’s not real and Sam has haepheophobia.

The characters that Sam works with are all with their own hang ups and baggage in life, all stranded in their lives by death. Mama/Målingen is trapped by the BT of her baby and her guilt, which killed her connection to Lockne until she was able to let go and in a miracle they were united again (still wish Mama didn’t have to die but I suppose LockMa is acceptable). Deadman apparently has no soul or beach due to his creation as an artificial being and this obviously isolated him but nobody seemed to treat him as anything less than a real person. Heartman is doing everything to heal his broken heart by reuniting with his family after death so as not to be alone, but all he did was break his flesh heart in an effort to heal his emotional one. Fragile, something that more describes her relationship to other people than herself because although she’s reviled and suspected to be a terrorist that helped Higgs she is a woman of unfailing conviction and a steel spine any Terminator would be jealous of.

Then Bridget and Amelie. Christ how do I say this! Dunno if I can even articulate this right but I’ll try. They were so instrumental in Sam’s life, so ubiquitous and consuming was their ghost. They made him family, but then we find they even made him a bridge baby and are responsible for his status as a repatriate. They bring him in to help them because despite their literal function in life being to wipe out the world, the harbinger of the 6th mass extinction, they want desperately NOT to be confined to their role and to give life a chance Amelie strands her beach away from humanity to give us a chance. We get a slower death, but also a chance at growth and to leave something behind, something for the next inhabitants to grow from and understand. Cliff, Jesus what can I really say about Cliff? He comes in as an enemy hellbent on taking our BB away, a singleminded ghost so bound up in his own regret and desires that he’s even forgetting the reasons behind his actions. To put him to rest and finding that he’s Sam’s father is so fucking cathartic and heartbreaking. (Also he’s hot as fuck let’s be real here ;D) Then Higgs. This. FUCKING. TROLL. Because let’s be real that what he is. He’s a troll, a griefer, that fucking toxic player who only gets off and has fun by destroying other people’s good experiences. It’s fucking sad what happened to him as a kid but doing this as an adult? He made his choice and I was glad to see the rabid fuck put down. Although being the meta dude and pizza troll was a little funny let’s be honest.

The Die-Hardman......fuck he’s hard to write about. He’s the dude who runs BRIDGES, a man who so very believes in the need for the rebirth of America. As the game progresses and we dig deeper, we find him to be the single strand who connects Cliff, Bridget, Amelie and Sam all together. He confessed to Sam his crimes, how he was responsible for killing Cliff and doing so under Bridget’s orders. We see him crying with remorse and guilt, that he loved Cliff and Bridget both but his efforts to save one while serving the other ended in tragedy. Sam leaving the new president of the UCA with the very gun he brought to end things and saying how “it won’t help him here” is SO FUCKING POWERFUL. YOU CANT DIE JOHN, YOU CANT TAKE THE EASY WAY OUT. YOU WANTED AMERICA BACK YOU GOT IT, BUT NOW YOU HAVE TO CARRY IT FORWARD. THIS IS YOUR BURDEN AND RESPONSIBILITY.

Death Stranding is a Kojima weird game. It’s not perfect of course, but honestly the game follows its own theme and message through to the end, and I caught myself thinking several times while trying to max likes for locations that “wait a sec am I becoming a MULE?” If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t mind all the trekking and silence, and the long-ass Kojima cutscene spiels I recommend trying the game.

#maria plays death stranding #death stranding

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whatsarasaid · 4 years

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As a prompt: Heartman & Mama nerding together pls

title: tossing rocks. fandom: death stranding. rating: teen & up. word count: approx. 1000. characters: heartman, mama (målingen).

—

“What’cha got?”

Mama had stopped answering with the typical ‘hello.’

They rang each other multiple times a week with new research or ideas on how to help Sam, so it seemed silly to chirp a formal greeting at every call. Heartman found their growing familiarity refreshing. Though he had worked with Mama and Lockne during the initial expedition out West, they were never close. The twins may have been an integral part of the Chiral Network, but they had also been young, and there were many, more experienced engineers with whom Heartman had consulted instead. But Bridges, having lost a majority of their workforce to BTs and voidouts, now relied heavily on Mama and her expertise. Which meant Heartman did, too.

Not that he minded in the least. Her measured confidence was a counterbalance to his frantic theorizing, steady when he raced and focused when he diverted course. Whenever he needed to chatter out his constellational thoughts, she was there to map them. To understand. He could blather to Sam all day (and, sometimes, accidentally did just that), but he realized that the porter’s intelligence lied in the kinesthetic, not the scientific. Mama, on the other hand, could track with his jargon. Speak his language.

The moiré chiral projection showed her lying beneath a suspended trike, wrench in hand, and grease spotting her forearms. Multitasker that she was, she had set up her chiral camera to record in her workshop so she could tinker as they spoke. She said keeping her hands busy got her brain turning enough to keep up with his.

“Sam’s bodily fluid analyses are back from Deadman and they are fascinating,” Heartman said as he paced back and forth across his lab, articulating with his hands, “They contain chiral matter, as we knew they would, but it seems as though these excretions negate the chiral matter within BTs. As you know, when living matter meets dead, they mirror each other, resulting in annihilation. But Sam’s bodily fluids don’t mirror. They match. This causes the BT to, well, dissolve. Or, maybe ‘resolve’ would be a better word, if we’re being philosophical about it. Who knows? Either way, this is a magnificent discovery.”

“So, I’m guessing the question is now: how are we going to utilize it?”

“Precisely, how are we going to utilize it,” he opened his palms, “My initial thought is in some sort of anti-BT weaponry.”

“I mean, it’s definitely possible,” Mama shuffled up onto her elbows, tapping her spanner against the floor in thought, “Sam’s blood—or whatever—just needs a vehicle to travel its target, right? So, we encapsulate it in a projectile—a bullet or grenade or something. The ink in marking rounds and paint grenades could even be swapped out. Easy.”

“Indeed,” he thrummed his fingers against the AED as his mind revolved, “Quite a simple solution. Though I’d want to further refine the technology. Give it some elegance.”

“Heartman, considering what these things are,” she smirked, “I’m not sure you could ever call them ‘elegant.’”

“I will admit that when you look at it in a certain light, it is unfortunately vulgar.”

“Don’t worry, it’s still a good idea,” she raised an indifferent shoulder, “Telling Sam will be interesting, though.”

A sharp squeal pierced from the other side of the line. Mama jerked up, and peered out into the distance, checking on something in her lab. After a moment, she settled back down with a dismissive wave, “Sorry ’bout that. Her new favorite thing is randomly squawking. She’s fine.”

Heartman’s smile grew tight. He didn’t know much about Mama’s situation. Just that she had been pregnant with Lockne’s child, and after the attack on her hospital, had cut off all contact with her sister. But the whole thing radiated suspicion. Like how Mama had turned the ruined hospital into her lab. Or how she had adopted a moniker. Or how she had given birth over fourteen months ago, but her daughter’s vocalizations still sounded like those of a newborn.

“Are you ever going to talk to Lockne?” The question was asked in concern, but as soon as it came out, he wanted to stuff it back in. Who was he to confront her on such a thing? People in glass houses ought not throw stones.

Mama went silent. And then a fizzled clatter rang through the chiralgram as she tossed her wrench into the nearby toolbox. “Sure,” she said, lying flat against the ground. Her hands sat limply on her ribcage as she rolled her head against the concrete to sigh up at the ceiling, “Someday.”

“That was inappropriate of me, Målingen, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, don’t apologize,” Mama mumbled as she rubbed her forehead, leaving behind a dark smear, “Some days are just harder than others.”

“They are,” he echoed back, thoughtful.

Uncertainty undertowed between them. Heartman longed to say more—he did, truly. But it seemed as though he had already mucked things up enough. He wished she could visit, wished she would open up, wished he would open up. But all the wishing in the world didn’t help.

Thirty-seconds until cardiac arrest. Please hold on to something secure. Activating lab security measures.

“I’ll let you get to dying,” Mama said as she sat up and dusted off her hands, “In the meantime, I’ll draw up some plans for prototypes. Should have them to you in a few days.”

“Målingen-”

“Take care of yourself, alright?”

Heartman plopped down on his chase lounge, feeling defeated. His mouth opened and closed, searching for words to comfort her, to let her know she didn’t have to pretend to be fine, to let her know he too knew what it was to be trapped and alone and scared.

But all he could get out in time was, “I’ll do my best.”

Five, four, three-

His heart stopped as her image flickered out.

end.

#death stranding #heartman #mama (death stranding)#målingen #prompts #this has 'life in the time of corona' vibes

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