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Language:
English
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Published:
2022-03-07
Words:
202
Chapters:
1/1
Kudos:
9
Hits:
64

What year is it?

Summary:

Several possible interpretations of the Undertale time period.

Notes:

This is a table I threw together while working on a fic, trying to figure out when exactly Undertale is supposed to take place. It's very rough and probably not all that useful to most people, but it is intended to show that there is a lot of room for interpretation, even sticking strictly to what canon tells us.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

 

Short gap

Long gap

Gregorian (human) calendar

Papyrus and Undyne born in 1990’s.

Chara fell down in 2010’s.

Frisk fell down (probably?) in 2020’s.

Chara fell down in 2010’s.

Papyrus and Undyne born in 2090’s.

Frisk fell down (probably?) in 2110’s.

Monster calendar (X is omitted digit)

Basically the same as short gap / Gregorian calendar, but allows for offset if desired. Probably most useful if you want to fudge some of the dates slightly.

Chara fell down in 2010’s by monster calendar, (e.g.) 1910’s by Gregorian calendar.

Papyrus and Undyne born in 2090’s by monster calendar, (e.g.) 1990’s by Gregorian calendar.

Frisk fell down in (e.g.) 2010’s or 2020’s by Gregorian calendar.

Monster calendar (X is suffix)

Papyrus and Undyne born in 190’s by monster calendar, (e.g.) 1990’s by Gregorian calendar.

Chara fell down in 201 by monster calendar, (e.g.) 2001 by Gregorian calendar.

Frisk fell down in (e.g.) 2010’s or 2020’s by Gregorian calendar.

Chara fell down in 201 by monster calendar, (e.g.) 1901 by Gregorian calendar.

Papyrus and Undyne born in 290’s by monster calendar, (e.g.) 1990’s by Gregorian calendar.

Frisk fell down in (e.g.) 2010’s or 2020’s by Gregorian calendar.

Notes:

Canon evidence:

  • The opening sequence establishes that Chara fell down in “201X,” and we can also find two different calendars from “201X” (in Toriel and Asgore’s homes), but we are never given any explanation of how to interpret this number. The horizontal rows correspond to three possible interpretations.
  • Papyrus and Undyne have their birth years in their UnderNet names, but they only use the last two digits, so we know that they were born in “the 90’s,” but not which 90’s. The vertical columns correspond to the two most reasonable interpretations (the 90’s before Chara fell down, and the 90’s after Chara fell down, respectively).

Short gap: Short gap assumes that Papyrus and Undyne were born before Chara fell down. This seems improbable because Undyne’s dialog strongly suggests that she has never seen or interacted with a human before.

Monster calendar: All versions of the monster calendar allow you to set the story in whatever time period you want by adjusting the offset between the monster calendar and the human calendar. You could even assume that a human year and a monster year have different lengths. The numbers shown above assume that Frisk fell down circa 2020 (by the Gregorian calendar), but the evidence for this is rather weak IMHO.

X as suffix: While this does not make much of a practical difference, it raises interesting questions about what happened 201 years before Chara fell, which may be worth exploring.

Gregorian calendar / Long gap: This is set well into the future, but the credits sequence suggests a more contemporary setting. But that's very much subject to interpretation.

Not shown here: In real life, humans use several other calendars besides the Gregorian calendar, and you could use one of those instead. The Gregorian calendar is shown here because it is by far the most widely used calendar in international trade and commerce, and because Undertale is an American game (the US exclusively uses the Gregorian calendar), so it seems unlikely that Toby Fox would have intended one of those other calendars.