Star Fox Timeline

Introduction

The Star Fox verse isn’t as deep or as complex as the other Nintendo franchises though it does have some misconceptions and explanations required, along with it’s own cosmology which at this moment no one scales too. The following will be an in-depth look at the Star Fox verse.

Continuities/Canon

Not everyone is familiar with this, but the Star Fox games aren’t one singular canon. It’s split into 3 different continuities, with an alternate timeline in the second continuity.

Original Continuity

The original continuity consists of 2 games and 1 comic series that came out before Star Fox SNES even came out. It starts with Star Fox 1 of them fighting and defeating Andross, the Nintendo Power Comic re-tells this and adds a new middle event in with the eventual Star Fox 2 releasing with Andross coming back again for revenge.

• Star Fox (1993)
• Nintendo Power Star Fox Comic (1993)
• Star Fox 2 (2017)

Reboot Continuity

Star Fox 64 is a continuity reboot of the franchise, with it re-telling the events of Star Fox SNES with new story points and new characters. Afterwards a prequel manga to Star Fox Adventures is made, explaining how Falco temporarily leaves Team Star Fox to go off on his own adventure and goes into the events of Star Fox Adventures, with Star Fox Adventures ending with Falco rejoining the crew and leading to Assault, afterwards leading to Command, which according to sources if a game were to continue from Command it would be in the middle of it meaning no ending is considered canon at this point in time.

• Star Fox 64 (1997) | Star Fox 64 3D (2011)
• Farewell Beloved Falco (2002)
• Star Fox Adventures (2002)
• Star Fox Assault (2005)
• Star Fox Command (2006)

Alternate Timeline

Essentially Command with Keys of Destiny, where each ending is a different timeline that’s not canon to the Reboot Continuity.

• Star Fox Command (2006- With the Keys of Destiny)

Zero Continuity

Simple enough, Star Fox Zero is another continuity reboot, with a canon anime, the game Zero itself which essentially tells the same plot as Star Fox 64, and Starlink Battles having a cameo section for team Star Fox in which it’s likely canon.

• Star Fox Zero (2016)
• Starlink: Battle for Atlas (2018), possible cameo part of the continuity

Cosmology

With this in mind there are 3 separate continuities, which are essentially 3 separate alternate timelines. Though there’s alternate universes/timelines within these continuities as well.

In Star Fox SNES there is an area called “another dimension” that Fox can get trapped within giving the secondary ending to Star Fox SNES.

It is unknown if it can be assumed this is the same dimension Fox McCloud Sr. is trapped in as shown in the comics. As Out of this Dimension is a very wacky area with a giant floating slot machine as an enemy which isn’t really ever mentioned how “wacky” that other dimension is in the comics. So with this one can either assume 3 universes within original continuity or 2.

In the reboot continuity we have Command itself, which hosts 9 different alternate endings confirmed alternate timelines.

Thus creating 9 alternate universes for reboot continuity.

From what is understood, there is no real alternate universe in the Zero Continuity, making it only one universe.

The total cosmology is 3 continuities, 3 universes in the first continuity, 9 universes in the second, and only one thus far in the third reaching 16 universes.

No one scales to the cosmology as far as we know.

Tiering

The standard tiering has no real controversies behind it. It’s mainly the 4-B tiering that raises an eyebrow. This comes from two things in Command, Andross amplified by the Krazoa spirits, who can casually keep the planet Sauria together, directly states he will destroy the entire Lylat System.

Potential Counterarguments

"But wait, isn’t that a mistranslation?”

This idea comes from the Japanese version of the game which translates Andross’ statement to “I will dominate the universe, not just the Lylat System”. While usually for a Nintendo game this would deconfirm anything in the English guide, the Japanese version isn’t actually the original translation for this game, nor is the game made by the original Japanese Studio. Star Fox Adventures is made by Rare, a british company, which if you know the famous history of Star Fox Adventures, you know this game was originally a completely different game that Rare themselves made from the ground up and rewrote it to fit into the Star Fox canon, so the writers came from Rare too. This thus makes the NoE version the most canon which has the statement.

“Couldn’t we use the Japanese versions translation as form of further implication that Andross was going to take over the Lylat System rather then literally destroy it?”

While one could see this, for one his motivation in the Japanese version of the game and the English version are slightly different. He wants to dominate the entire universe in the Japanese version while Andross in the English version wants to destroy specifically the entire Lylat System and makes no mention of the universe conquering. It couldn’t really be this as adding on if his end goal motivation is different. Along with this, Andross is amplified by beings that could casually contain a planet from coming apart and apparently if this planet self-destructs it will affect the entire Lylat System, while the question of if the Krazoa Spirits can contain a 4-B self-destructing or contain the planet itself from splitting apart which them not doing that results in the 4-B self-destructing can be debated, the point is that this is another statement in the same game in regards to the Lylat System’s destruction rather than conquering.

“Would this even be consistent to scale too? I mean the Arwing randomly becoming 4-B in this game after being 6-B in the last, and feats in Assault and Command don’t seem on the same scale?”

The Arwings are the top tier items of the verse even as prototypes Andross himself, a massive genius couldn't perfectly replicate them and this was them in their prototype phase, 8 years later a Slippy who casually made the blue-marine out of spare parts and it's equal to the Arwings power and he's been working on the Arwings weapons for 8 years so it's gotten a massive power boost from one of the smartest characters in verse. In Assault it’s directly stated that the Arwing’s refined and improved to have the strongest firepower in the Lylat System, and in Command Fox is using the Arwing II, which is weaker than the original Arwing from 64, so this would be consistent and there’s no real contradictions.