Theory talk:Timeline - Class

The Episode 3-4 Gap
To explain; the first three episodes are a simple affair as is Joyride. The last three episodes and Queen of Rhodia are also simple and quite tied together. But everything between that is a bit more difficult.

Most people seem to try to explain some of the issues with fitting the audios into the Nightvisiting to The Metaphysical Engine, Or What Quill Did gap by placing them post Brave-ish Heart to avoid any conflict - but this is simply unworkable as a wholesale solution. Dorothea explicitly states to Quill that she'll see her on Monday about getting the Arn out of her head. This means the gap between Brave-ish Heart and The Metaphysical Engine, Or What Quill Did is, at best, a period of a week (if BH occurs on a Monday) and, at worst, three days (if occurring on a Friday).

Taking it on at its best, some stories cannot fit that gap (Now You Know... requires an explicit five day gap between its fourth and fifth day of events, Life Experience as it occurs on a Monday and leaves little room for Tanya & Ram to end up in detention, Catfish requires seven days, Everybody Loves Reagan requires five days & then notes that mock exams are on the way...)

There are stories that can fit into this proposed seven days (albeit, rather tightly) - Mock,In Remembrance and Tell Me You Love Me are workable candidates.

I've amended the timeline to bring it more in line with this idea but I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on the matter. JDPManjoume ☎  04:18, August 23, 2020 (UTC)

I actually think that the Episode 5/6 gap is the more useable gap, although it doesn’t appear to be initially and this is why:

For Tonight We Might Die can be dated to taking place from the 12th to 14th October 2016. This is due to a missing persons poster saying that the Coal Hill student who went missing at the beginning of the episode disappeared on Wednesday the 12th. Another poster tells us that the prom took place on Friday 14th, so that’s pretty straight forward for the first episode.

The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo takes place over four consecutive days, and according to a computer date, ends on a Thursday. So that tells us it begins on a Monday. But it also begins a week after For Tonight We Might Die. Therefore it must begin Monday 24th October, just over a week after For Tonight We Might Die and then ends on Friday 28th.

Nightvisiting takes place over one day and into the early hours of the following morning. It starts on a Thursday, so ends on a Friday morning. Therefore the earliest Nightvisiting can possibly take place is a week after the end of The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo, which would 3-4 November.

Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart / Brave-ish Heart takes place roughly a month after For Tonight We Might Die. But as you can see, roughly three weeks have already elapsed from For Tonight We Might Die through to the end of Night Visiting. So that leaves us with a pretty small gap for stories, so it’s perhaps not as workable as you may have expected. In fact they even mention that Armitage was replaced really quickly after his death, and Ram and April only seem to finally resolve their feelings for each other within this story, with them awkwardly circling around each other prior to this.

Yes, Dorothea does say that she’ll meet Quill on Monday to discuss the removal of the Arn, but she also tells her that she still has to do parent-teacher evening which she clearly wouldn’t do if it’s after the removal of her arn. Also, Ram and April have clearly been together long enough that things are getting strained. We can assume that Ames and Quill simply met on the Monday to discuss the removal of the Arn, possibly with Dorothea gathering more information about it from Quill to relay back to the Governors.

Then Detained and Metaphysical Engine take place concurrently, ending on a cliffhanger with Quill fainting. She wakes up from her coma a week later to become involved with the events of The Lost. However it’s mentioned now that a few months have passed since For Tonight We Might Die when if Detained truly had occurred the Monday after Brave-ish only a week and a few days would have passed since that story which explicitly took place a few months after For Tonight We Might Die.

So in conclusion, I believe that the gap prior to the two parter is actually the smaller one, with only a week or two being open for further adventures to be placed, while it’s more likely that at least a month passes between the events of Brave-ish Heart and Detained. SarahJaneFan ☎  19:23, August 23, 2020 (UTC)

Interesting... Your proposition re. Brave-ish Heart sounds good & quite workable to me, based on the phrasing of what is said at the end of the episode - and nothing comes to mind in TMEOWQD as contradictory to that notion. I would be happy to go with a longer gap in there, as I think you've made a reasonable case for it.

The question then becomes the ordering for the audios. Creeper and QoR are simple enough. I would note that we need to keep the following in mind for the rest though for placing all of these post-BH;

Explicit points of note
 * NYK... (5 days, 4 consecutive & then the 5th day occurs explicitly five days after day 4) - after Stone House because of Pentagon line.
 * Catfish (7 days, first 2 days are explicitly consecutive, not quite sure about the others) - after NYK - because Tanya and Matteusz homework lines in both leading a reasonable progression. [I know it frames April and Ram as close to, if not, being a couple... but given Charlie's remarks about Matteusz being recently kicked out, I'd be hesitant to shift this one signficantly late in the timeline. Also, Day 6 makes mention that Ram hasn't seen Tanya for a while, so this must be reasonably distanced from Life Experience, ELR and Mock.]

Reasonable conclusions
 * Soer's Ditch - before TMYLM would best make sense of Charlie's surprise that Matteusz states he loves him & if we're presenting Gifted as a pivotal post-BH relationship point for Ram and April - then this should likely come after that so that Ram and April would be up for a double date night.
 * ELR (5 days) - before Mock, as Tanya makes note of upcoming mocks.
 * Mock - under this new proposition, post-BH and post ELR

Other notable points
 * Sweet Nothings (10 days, not necessarily consecutive - Day 9 explicitly a Thursday]
 * Life Experience [excluding opening, explicitly a Monday]
 * TMLYM [explicitly a Friday]

In Remembrance seems to be placeable anywhere post-Stone House. Though I would wonder, should we split out the 1963-set sections of IR and the six months prior flashbacks of Joyride out - and place them on the timeline pre-FTWMD? JDPManjoume ☎  13:59, August 26, 2020 (UTC)

The Dorothea Ames Gifted debacle
I've looked at the timeline for Class a fair bit since the audios came out, and have been trying to figure out a way best to fit things... I've now added some of my points to this page and reordered as required based on them. But there's one notable sticking point - and Big Finish seemed determined to dodge around it by being very vague - and that's of Dorothea Ames.

I've noted the complexity of the Eps 3-4 gap as is but, however, regardless of how we place stories... there is one notable stumbling point. Gifted makes note of a female headteacher, but doesn't say it is Dorothea. And doesn't make any references to events beyond the first three episodes. I've currently placed it where I have, out of lack of ability to decide.

The story makes no note of the very notable events of Eps 4 & 5. And April and Ram are presented as a not-yet-stable relationship, whereas by the time we reach Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart, their relationship seems a lot more solid. Placing it before would seem like the option, then? Well... Though we never have the headteacher in question featured, it's mentioned that she has confiscated Ram's phone. Thus, it doesn't seem easy to relegate this as pre-Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart at that point, because Ram is noticeably surprised and unaware of her when Dorothea first makes herself known to them. Unless we started speculating without due evidence that it wasn't Dorothea but a different female head - which, of course, we're not going to do here! - then it leaves rather a difficult situation for placing that particular story. JDPManjoume ☎  04:18, August 23, 2020 (UTC)

What She Does Next Will Astound You
Okay, so I know authorial intent sticks the majority of WESDNWAY within that aforementioned gap between Brave-ish Heart and Detained, but I'm struggling to pull out any definite evidence within the story itself to support this. There's also the matter of how to address this story, as various bits of it occur at unknown intervals as the plot builds up. The only definitively placed moment I can find is the three pages set on the day that Mr. Armitage is skinned by the Leaf Dragon. Should we be only finding a place for the majority of the story? And what thoughts do we have on the actual placement of it? JDPManjoume ☎  04:18, August 23, 2020 (UTC)

It pretty much has to go between episodes 3 and 4, because episode 3 is referenced a few times but Ram and April clearly aren’t a couple yet but are getting closer, so it falls at some point between episodes 3 and 4. SarahJaneFan ☎  19:25, August 23, 2020 (UTC)

Joyride and Creeper in relation to Nightvisiting
In discussion above, the following has been noted: ''The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo takes place over four consecutive days, and according to a computer date, ends on a Thursday. So that tells us it begins on a Monday. But it also begins a week after For Tonight We Might Die. Therefore it must begin Monday 24th October, just over a week after For Tonight We Might Die and then ends on Friday 28th.''

''Nightvisiting takes place over one day and into the early hours of the following morning. It starts on a Thursday, so ends on a Friday morning. Therefore the earliest Nightvisiting can possibly take place is a week after the end of The Coach with the Dragon Tattoo, which would 3-4 November.''

However, another potential issue has now come to mind under such a point.

Joyride pg. 45 (US print page numbers - the more correct printing of the two, as it corrects typographical issues and a few other discontinuous points present within the UK printing) has Ram noting the events of FTWMD & TCWTDT as having occurred, and this is following that. Pg 101 also supports this in that Veronica only mentions a fuss at prom and the 'frightful business with the Sports Department'. Joyride takes place over four consecutive days - the fourth of which is noted as a Tuesday (pg 118 - Fletcher remarks that Miss Cummings is on what he knows as her regular 'Tuesday morning ballet class'.).

With what has been said in mind re. Nightvisiting being the 3rd to 4th Nov... we could just manage to fit Joyride in before that as a Saturday 29th to Tuesday 1st occurrence. But I'm curious how we should be consoling The Creeper within that. It seems to be explicitly Halloween night (Monday 31st), and Chapter 8 - on the Monday night in Joyride - illustrates that Tanya and April cannot come out tonight. And if we were to posit it as an early party for Halloween, then Sunday 30th would be out, as Quill, Charlie and Matteusz are home all night.

We could shift The Creeper to Saturday 29th (or even Friday 28th, the day after TCWTDT) as it only details Poppy's death, and maintain the currently suggested dating of Nightvisiting. Or we could keep Creeper as Monday 31st and shift the other stories. Making Joyride Sat Nov 5th to Tuesday Nov 8th. With Nightvisiting being the Thurs 10th and Friday 11th? JDPManjoume ☎  14:06, August 26, 2020 (UTC)