[SPOILERS] We Happy Few Timeline

[HAMBERLYNN SNEED]

Now that the game has finally been released (and I suspect a lot of us are sticking it out with this game for the sweet sweet narrative), we should try to put together a definitive timeline for the world of We Happy Few to piece together what happened.

SPOILERS BELOW - READ NO FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT "WE HAPPY FEW" TO BE IRREVOCABLY SPOILED FOR YOU.

Here is my guess as to how the major events relate to each other (though I'm missing a lot cos I'm going off memory), but please discuss below where I'm right, wrong, or suggest your own timelines!

LAST WARNING - SPOILERS BELOW - Other users in this thread might not use spoiler tags!

The format of the below list is [MONTH/YEAR] - [SOURCE] - DETAILS.

• 1932 - [IN-GAME NOTE] - Victoria Byng's mother is arrested for promoting Indian Independence.
  
• 1932 - [IN-GAME NOTE] General Byng and Victoria return to England.
  
• 1933 - [UNKNOWN SOURCE/GUESS] The Nazis' attempt to take over Germany fails, and the Weimar Republic reverts to the monarchy of old, the German Empire.
  
• 1939 - [GUESS] WW2 begins.
  
• 1942 - [PERCY CUTSCENE] The Germans attempt to invade England via the seaside town of Ramsgate, but are repulsed.
  
• 1943 - [MAP IN THE BUNKER/OTHER] The Germans invade England a second time, and succeed in establishing a beachhead.
  
• June 1943 - [MAP IN THE BUNKER] London falls. The Germans start moving northwards.
  
• September 1943 - [MAP IN THE BUNKER] Birmingham falls.
  
• December 1943 - [MAP IN THE BUNKER] Manchester falls.
  
• 1944 - [GUESS/OLLIE STARKEY] - England surrenders. The Occupational Authority is established. The Home Army and Jack Worthing start to collaborate with the Germans, the latter becoming "the voice of German radio".
  
• 1947 - [NEWSPAPERS/IN-GAME NOTES] - The Occupational Authority begins registering all children under 13 in the town of Wellington, and possibly throughout England.
  
• 1947 - [LETTER TO THE EDITOR/CUTSCENES] - Three Wellies are hanged by the rest of the town for attempting to destroy the register of children
  
• 1947/48 - [IN-GAME NOTES/MEMORIES] - The children of Wellington Wells are taken away, via train over the Britannia Bridge to (presumably) Bristol, where an ocean liner (I forget the name) takes them to Bremerhaven, Germany.
  
• Between 1947 and 1953 - [IN-GAME NOTES/CUTSCENES] - The "Breeder Riots" occur. Women showing signs of pregnancy either try to hide it, or are attacked by the now-childless Wellies for reminding them of their lost children? This may be the inspiration for having Joy act a wide-spectrum contraceptive.
  
• 1950 - [IN-GAME NOTE] - General Byng writes to Dr. Haworth, advising that the population are badly demoralised (presumably due to having sent all their children away), and asking him to come up with some sort of chemical solution. The idea perhaps comes from the fact that the invading German troops, during the war, were hopped up on barbiturates and other chemicals which made them nearly unstoppable and is maybe the reason why they won so quickly.
  
• 1950 or 1953 - [IN-GAME NOTE] - Joy is invented by the scientists at Haworth Labs, and is distributed to the population of Wellington Wells. Initially, the first "flavour" (Strawberry), uses stocks and caches of (high quality?) chemicals left behind by the Germans.
  
• 1950 or 1953 - [SALLY CUTSCENE] - No further children are born in Wellington Wells until the time of the game, as Joy acts as a contraceptive.
  
• 9th October 1964 - The game begins; Arthur Hastings escapes from the Parade District.

OTHER POINTS/THEORIES THAT I HAVEN'T FIGURED OUT YET IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER AND ARE ALL GUESSES OR STUFF I VAGUELY REMEMBER

• To counteract falling stocks of the original German chemicals used to make the original Joy, new "flavours" (Vanilla/Chocolate) are developed. The new flavours are not as reliable as the original, and the first "Downers" appear, people who have reacted badly to Joy
  
• Quality control at Haworth Labs, now under the control of Dr. Anton Verloc, begins to slip, and "bad batches" of Joy make it out into Wellington Wells, resulting in more Downers.
  
• The lower and lower quality of Joy being consumed slowly causes society to fracture, through citizens and workers being as happy as ever, but more forgetful and incompetent. Underlying infrastructure, like the Motilene network, starts to crumble. Food stocks/production AND Joy production also starts to tumble. All this results in the likely utter collapse of Wellie society by (probably) October 1964 (i.e. the time of the actual game lol).
  
• The German forces occupying Wellington Wells (and England?) leave at some point. Not sure why. I think this is referred as "The Victory" (date established by V. Byng as the code to the elevator to Ollie). The Home Army takes over the German camp where the fake paper tanks are and renames it "The Victory Memorial Camp".
  
• Apparently Byng knew all along that the tanks, preventing the population from rebelling against the occupying Germans, were fake, but didn't tell anyone as he felt that any rebellion would result in the death of the town anyway. He ordered the Army to take over the camp to prevent citizens from stumbling upon the secret.
  
• The children taken by the Germans are never returned. What happened to them?
  
• Uncle Jack fled at some point shortly before Ollie Starkey reached the WWBC studios.
  
• Uncle Jack never took Joy? Several people have pointed out that Jack always looks like he's faking any "on-screen" consumption of Joy.
  
• I have read (on TV Tropes/Wikipedia) that the universe of WHF differs also by something to do with FDR in the United States (assassinated?). But I have no idea where this comes from. Perhaps some long forgotten note in some alpha build of the game.
  
• Grafitti in the bunker suggests the Erwin Rommel was the leader of Germany during this time, and that the Germans stationed there were pulled out to fight against the USSR ("I'll send a postcard from Stalingrad!")
  
• The map in bunker also definitively marks Wellington Wells as being in the Severn Estuary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Estuary). However, I believe this is a mistake on the part of Compulsion, as the "Mouth of the Severn" wouldn't nearly be wide enough to hold an island chain the size of Wellington Wells,
  
• I believe it is more likely that Wellington Wells is actually situated further to the west, in the middle of the large body of water between the South Wales coast and southwest England known as the Bristol Channel. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Channel).
  
• Thanks to this, I figure that the Britannia Bridge (the only bridge connecting to the mainland) runs south of Wellington Wells and connects to England (rather than north to Wales), as General Byng sent a taxi to Bristol containing the last two Wellie children to be sent to Germany (they missed a train).
  
• It seems that people from the mainland were trading with Wellington Wells, and mainlanders were even established in Apple Holm railway station under the Broadcasting Tower, Parade District. It seems whatever madness was afflicting Wellington Wells was not happening in the Mainland. There is a sign in the station, perhaps urging traders to take advantage of the Wellies ("The whole town has gone MAD!").
  
• Trade with the outside world eventually ceased at some point and for some reason.

Feel free to add points and suggest your own timelines. Try to source everything you can. TV Tropes has a lot of stuff seemingly presented as canon but I can't find any corroborating in-game evidence. Let's try and avoid that!

[Eichhorst]

Was fun to read good job

[MiamoAlex]

Well that's a really detailed post, good job !

[shadowsfm]

i got the impression that strawberry is the latest flavor, because people are getting tired of the previous flavours. like, why would all the playable characters always choose the original flavor in the joy booth?

[Zimbabwe Salt Co.]

German takeover is due to the July Bomb Plot succeeding I think rather than the Nazi's being overthrown in the 30s. And the FDR assassination was mentioned in a lore video I saw ages back. No idea if it's even canon. But apart from that really good post, was an interesting read.

[HAMBERLYNN SNEED]

Originally posted by Zimbabwe Salt Co.:

German takeover is due to the July Bomb Plot succeeding I think rather than the Nazi's being overthrown in the 30s. And the FDR assassination was mentioned in a lore video I saw ages back. No idea if it's even canon. But apart from that really good post, was an interesting read.

Could be. It would mean the bomb plot would have had to have happened before 1944, as it did in our time line. The UK (and Wellington Wells) was already under the German jackboot by end of 1943, and they were the German Empire at that point (all the German military wooden crates have crosses/balkenkreuz on them, rather than swastikas.)

Also Stauffenberg was busy administering the occupation of Wellington Wells during 1944.

[Zimbabwe Salt Co.]

Originally posted by BULLY HUNTER_77:

Could be. It would mean the bomb plot would have had to have happened before 1944, as it did in our time line. The UK (and Wellington Wells) was already under the German jackboot by end of 1943, and they were the German Empire at that point (all the German military wooden crates have crosses/balkenkreuz on them, rather than swastikas.)

Also Stauffenberg was busy administering the occupation of Wellington Wells during 1944.

I imagine it would of taken place earlier or is just an entirely different plot altogether as I believe this was mentioned somewhere in old lore.

[blackmyron]

It's interesting to note that the Germans used a 'fatigue pill' drug given to their soldiers that effectively negated their sleep, implying that was how they managed to overcome the British; the Joy chemicals were developed from the German stockpiles left behInd. (I suspect that their overreliance on the drug led to their later failures)

It is heavily implied that the Germans left because they were badly losing the war; one of the Lawrence brothers have a map detailing the Soviet Union gradually overwhelming the Germans to take over Europe. Newspaper articles found in the Garden District support this, mentioning Berlin taken in 1948 and Madrid in 1949. The map also shows that the Americans and Soviet Union have similar Cold War divisions of the world, with the US apparently getting Ireland. Ollie's phone eavesdroppings catch an American-style sports team in Ireland instead of Mr. K's messages. Neither side, for some reason, apparently wanted England. That is one of the mysteries that wasn't solved - one of the conversations in the Garden District is a person wondering where the Russians and Americans are, and only a note about trade being interrupted until the the 'international situation' changes... which is why the Joy chemicals can't be replaced normally.

Note that in the article about the Soviets taking Madrid, General Byng is demanding that they turn over the children. Who knows if he was being truthful or not about the children still being alive...

[HAMBERLYNN SNEED]

Originally posted by blackmyron:

Note that in the article about the Soviets taking Madrid, General Byng is demanding that they turn over the children. Who knows if he was being truthful or not about the children still being alive...

Yes, I also found the "Soviets Take Madrid" note but was very confused as to how that could be (and the map in the bunker stating that France is now a soviet republic). But it makes sense if Germany was already overrun by the USSR by 1964. I must have missed a significant part of the lore.

Maybe the children were taken to act as hostages, as a way to enforce compliance of a defeated nation without needing to occupy that nation.

I'll play through the game again and make a better timeline.

[blackmyron]

Check out the map in the attic of Colonel Lawrence's brother - it shows battle lines from 1943 to 1949 over Europe, which seems to indicate the Soviet Union's takeover of the continent. One of letters from 1950 indicate that the Germans had already abandoned Wellington Wells (and, presumably England) but then. I suspect that the kicker to the Real Bad Thing is that the "date of the victory" (i.e. when the Germans left of their own accord) - 01/26 - is for the year 1948, as Berlin was taken later that year and the Germans probably needed all the troops they could muster. This means that if the English had simply rebelled or even just stalled the Germans six months, they would've never had to send their children...

[HAMBERLYNN SNEED]

I'm starting a collection of in-game screenshots that have anything to do with the ingame lore.

Also, the "fan wiki" found here (http://we-happy-few.wikia.com/wiki/We_Happy_Few) is a load of codswollop, filled with unverified sources, theories, and guesses based on nothing. Example: it's annoying when they constantly refer to Nazis when the devs have confirmed that it was a German Empire that invaded the UK. Just a lazy assumption.

Avoid this crap wiki.

I hope we can all work together on making the official one better![wehappyfew.gamepedia.com]