Timeline v3.0

1958: ARPA is established.

1969: ARPA launches the ARPANET computer network.

1971: The first computer virus, ‘Creeper’, is created. A counter program, ‘Reaper’, is used to eliminate it.

1972: Pong is released.

1974: Project Carthage, a top secret military project by the French government, enters theoretical analysis.

1977: ENCOM is listed in TIME Magazine among the ‘Top Ten Companies To Invest In’ following a string of video game hits like Space Paranoids and Vice Squad.

1981: Arcade entrepreneur and former ENCOM employee Kevin Flynn is revealed to be the original coder of ‘The ENCOM Five’ instead of then Senior Executive VP Ed Dillinger.

1982: Arcade entrepreneur and former ENCOM employee Kevin Flynn is revealed to be the original coder of ‘The ENCOM Five’ instead of then Senior Executive VP Ed Dillinger.
>TCP/IP, the basic communication language/protocol of the Internet, is developed thanks to government grants. Team lead Tadashi Hikari vows to make the Internet accessible wherever possible.

1983: SciLab is founded by Tadashi Hikari, receives government grants.
>DEFCON 1 is briefly declared by the United States Armed Forces for the first time. The reasoning given is unclear and never unclassified.
>>Investigations by the founders of the Twilight Foundation discovered that this was caused by a high-school student named David Lightman accidentally hacking into the War Operation Plan Response (WOPR), a US SuperComputer programmed to predict outcomes of nuclear war.
>Kevin Flynn is promoted to CEO of ENCOM, along with new board members Alan Bradley and Lora Bradley.

1984: Project Carthage enters production.

1986: The 'Monster Makers' project is shut down by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most of the team members are hired by ENCOM.

1989: The highlight of the 1989 World’s Fair proves to be the world’s first ‘wireless room’, one connected to the Internet. ENCOM is the partner for the project.
>Berlin Wall falls. Within the same week, Kevin Flynn is declared missing and ENCOM’s stake of ownership falls to his young son Sam. Alan Bradley becomes acting CEO until a replacement is named at the end of the year.
>>Flynn's sudden disappearance was the subject of multiple conspiracy theories. Investigations by the Twilight Foundation discovered that Kevin Flynn became trapped in a server beneath the arcade bearing his name thanks to the duplicity of a program known as CLU.

1990: In a corporate room shuffle, ENCOM votes to remove Alan and Lora Bradley from their positions as members of the board of directors. Alan and Lora are offered high-ranking positions within ENCOM's engineering department.

1991: The first modern computer viruses appear. Mass hysteria ensues as millions of dollars in damages occurs. Some appliances end up trying to fight each other.

July 1991: Recall begins of ‘wireless room’ products as a near 100% failure rate occurs amongst all Internet-capable appliances. ENCOM stock declines 47% on the news, government agencies announce a formal review of all contracts with SciLab.

July-December 1991: Virus activity fluctuates wildly in a 'Virus Dark Age'.
>>Twilight Foundation investigations have determined that the Internet became overrun with massive amounts of Web Creatures, Viruses, bad faith actors, and an entity known as 'Gregar' - a naturally occurring accumulation of bugs that went rampant. SciLab began work on multiple solutions to try and save Tadashi Hikari's dream.
>>>The AutoNavi: Bass.EXE proved effective, but was ultimately lost and blamed internally for much of the damage the Dark Age caused.
>>>Operation Cybeast: SciLab attempted to create an entity able to go toe-to-toe with Gregar known internally as Falzar. While successful, SciLab quickly lost control and found it contributing to the chaos.
>>>The NetNavi: An iteration on the principles of the AutoNavi, and the solution pioneered by Tadashi Hikari.

1 December 1991: DEFCOM 1 is declared for the second time.
2 December 1991: Internet activity suddenly resumes, though virus levels are at a then-all time high.
7 December 1991: ENCOM and SciLab announce the launch of the PET v1.0, a small electronic portable device touted as a ‘virus busting’ machine thanks to the ‘Network Navigator’ (NetNavi) AI program inside.

1992: Government agencies conclude that SciLab contracts will continue following a decline in virus activity by 93%. Anti-virus protocols are mandated to be installed into all future Internet-capable appliances.
>In the aftermath of the Virus Dark Age, Microsoft stock declines by 26%. Several key members of Microsoft, including Harald Hoerwick, split off to form their own company, CC Corp.

1993: CC Corp releases a 'killer app' for their new OS 'ALTMINT OS', 'The World'. It propels the MMORPG to prominence years ahead of schedule.
>Based on internal investigations, the Twilight Foundation estimates this is when Doctor Tadashi Hikari and Doctor Albert Wily discovered SoulNet. Research was shuttered by the end of the year.

1994: Project Carthage is officially shuttered following the disappearance of the SuperComputer.
>Franz Schaeffer contacts Albert Wily in an attempt to ferry his wife to safety.
>>Based on interviews with Wily, this was when he determined he needed to act as a purposefully antagonistic force to "correct" Flynn and Light's oversights.
>Ubi Soft announces the Animus Personal Entertainment Console (APEC) as a competitor to the PET.
>>Legal proceedings discovered that the APEC is based on internal developments of Project Carthage.
>ENCOM announces the untimely death of Lora Bradley.
>>Investigations by members of the Twilight Foundation determined that Lora Bradley did not actually die, but was trapped in ENCOM's systems and highly fragmented.

1995: HBD, or ‘Heart Broken Disease’, is officially discovered. Dr. Tadashi Hikari declares his immediate retirement from SciLab following a cancer diagnosis.
>The PET 2.0 is officially released, offering increased customizability over the palette swaps of the standard NetNavi.
>Plavsky Particle System Engineering (PPSE) releases an add-on to the APEC, with the pack-in game 'Gundam Frontier', an add-on to the APEC designed to digitize Gundam gunpla sets. Upgrades and patches allow it to be ported to PETs.

1996: Dr. Tadashi Hikari is declared legally dead after going missing.
>>Investigations by members of the Twilight Foundation determined that Tadashi Hikari was trapped in the Internet, highly fragmented and kept alive by the Guardian Gridman, one of last original Guardians.
>The popularity of Gundam Frontier makes the news as instances of random players glow red at times, resulting in increased performance. The resulting rollout of the "Gunpla Avatar Increased Output System" (GAIOS) software suite attempts to control and regulate these "Awakenings".

1999: Times Universe, an American company, expands into Eastern Asia in a partnership with the W Corporation. The companies assist with co-sponsoring a NASA/JAXA space elevator near the Hawaiian Islands.
>PPSE debuts a stand-alone hardware rig for dedicated gunpla fights. The GAIOS Frontier pods slowly begin to revitalize arcades across North America.
>A fire destroys CC Corp's databases, eliminating most of data associated with 'The World'.

2000: Internet-based crime syndicates increase scope and reach. Organizations such as ‘W3’ cause billions of dollars in losses.

2001: Following the catastrophic launch of Windows ME, Microsoft declares bankruptcy. Window's market share is roughly split by CC Corp's ALTIMIT OS and ENCOM's OS-7.
>CC Corp releases 'The World R:2', the long-awaited followup to 'The World'. With players unable to transfer character data from 'The World' or illegal legacy servers and with significant gameplay changes, many refer to the launch as 'Goddess's Death'.

20XX: The 5th Gunpla Battle World Championship ends in controversy as champion 'Mr. Gunpla' is defeated by Will Fairhurst, followed by both competitors announcing their retirement from competitive gunpla battling in the following weeks.

20XX: The 7th Gunpla Battle World Championship also ends in controversy as PPSE is nearly bankrupted when the event is attacked by a virus that creates a virtual A Baoa Qu instance. Bandai steps in following the tournament's conclusion, purchasing PPSE.

20XX: Compounding errors and bugs have assembled into Artificially Intelligent Data Anomalies, or AIDA. After much consideration, CC Corp declines to shut down 'The World R:2' for fear of allowing the AIDA to spread to the rest of the Internet.

20XX: fCon CEO Ed Dillinger announces its intention to perform a hostile takeover of ENCOM, filing legal paperwork that Sam Flynn is intentionally tanking the company. The board and CEO file amicus briefs in favor of the takeover.
>ENCOM OS-12 (estimated to be at 26% market share) is announced to have the strictest security measures on the planet to prevent piracy.

--Timeline Correction; Events Diverge Due to The World That Never Was--

20XX: Initial tests for EDEN go smoothly without any issues.

20XX, Season 1 (Corrected Timeline): Members of the Twilight Foundation discover the Lyoko SuperComputer, along with the Mainframe system.
>W3, led by Lord Wily, attempts to create the Life Virus and take over military installations in space. His efforts fail, and W3 reportedly is disbanded.
>Members of what would become the Twilight Foundation discover the presence of a second Doctor Wily, an expert in robotics decades ahead of current progress.
>The AI XANA is discovered to be inside of the Lyoko SuperComputer, along with Aelita Schaeffer.

20XX, Season 2 (Corrected Timeline): Gospel, claiming to be the successor to W3, manipulates the public into helping it create Gospel.EXE though assembling enough BugFrag into a single area.
>Keen efforts by the Twilight Foundation prevent Megabyte, a virus in the Mainframe system, from expelling the Guardian Bob into the Net while simultaneously fragmenting XANA into pieces too small to reconstitute into its original form. Core operations for the system are now hidden behind a Firewall.
>The Foundation rediscovers AIDA and manages to prevent them from being consumed by Gospel.
>The Foundation prevents fCon from performing a hostile takeover of ENCOM, returning Lora Bradley to life in the process.
>The Foundation uncovers evidence of multiple futures attempting to interfere with the natural progression of events, including "Terminators" trying to kill key members of the Foundation and persons claiming to be children of key members.
>Thailand falls into a state of anarchy following CutMan.EXE's destruction of massive amounts of data critical to basic infrastructure and governance.

20XX, Season 3 (Corrected Timeline) - Thus Far: W3 returns, attempting to exploit the true cause of the Viral Dark Age - Alpha. It fails, and Doctor Albert Wily is arrested.
>Twilight Foundation expansion efforts hit multiple snags:
>>The French government launches an ill-fated series of actions against the Foundation with the attempt of retrieving the lost SuperComputer. These efforts backfire, resulting in the exposure of decades of malfeasance.
>>The Foundation is expelled from Thailand, losing high amounts of material for IDPs and hardware following an attack by the terrorist organization 'Shadaloo'. Personnel only escape thanks to the quick thinking of an employee with a Wailord.
>Investigations into the creation and distribution of DarkChips, long an issue for cyber-security, determine that Shadaloo and the mysterious Acceleration Research Society are involved.
>The Foundation discovers the true fate of Kevin Flynn and Aelita's mother.
>First contact is established in this timeline with the Digital World, including King Drasil.