Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5977013-20170810175751

Hi everyone. I'd just like to share with all of you the conclusions I've made about the exact years in which the Ben 10 original timeline (pre-Omniverse) takes place, including the birth years of main characters.

The most important piece of evidence in this endeavor comes from the episode "Moonstruck" of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. Max stated in the episode that he was Kevin's age, meaning he was 17 years old when the events of the episode took place. When Max's Air Force superior mentioned John F. Kennedy being President of the United States at the time, it confirmed that the episode had to take place between January 20, 1961 and November 22, 1963.

With this in mind, the colonel in "Moonstruck" also alluded to a famous speech delivered by Kennedy on September 12, 1962 announcing America's intention to begin a lunar space program. This means the episode most likely had to take place after this date. The colonel also invited Max to join the space program, which, based on the date and the events of the original series episode "The Return," we know to be the Apollo space program that included Neil Armstrong, who took Max's place on Apollo 11 after he quit NASA to join the Plumbers. The astronauts of the Apollo program were announced to the general public on September 17, 1962.

If Max was selected as an Apollo astronaut before September 17 but after September 12, this means that the events of "Moonstruck" had to take place within this five-day span in 1962. We know from the original series episode "Ben 10,000" that Max's birthday is in the summer, which means that he celebrated his seventeenth birthday in the summer of 1962. This naturally leads to the conclusion that Max had to have been born in the summer of 1945.

This is where conclusions about the dates of the rest of the series can be made. For example, if Max turned sixty during the events of "Ben 10,000," that means the original Ben 10 series had to take place during the summer of 2005. This logically adds up due to the fact that the series originally aired in 2005 as well. With this in mind, we come to the conclusion that Ben and Gwen were born sometime ten to eleven years prior to 2005. However, it is hard to say for certain as (excluding the Omniverse timeline) the month of their birthday is unknown.

However, this information was in fact hidden in the original timeline after all. The movie Ben 10: Alien Swarm was considered canon in the original timeline as verified by the Ben 10: Ultimate Alien episode "Return of the Swarm" and the presence of Nanomech as an alien in the series. During the events of the movie, Kevin gave Ben the DX Mark 10 as a "birthday present," though Ben stated his birthday was "two months ago." Later in the same movie, Gwen remarked that it was February, firmly placing Ben and Gwen's birthday in December. Because Ben and Gwen turned sixteen around the same time that Kevin turned seventeen in the weeks between Ben 10: Alien Force and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, we will also say that Kevin was born in November or December.

Based on all of the above information, here are my conclusions about the dates of Ben 10 events:

- Max Tennsyon was born in the summer of 1945.

- Kevin Levin was born toward the end of 1993.

- Ben and Gwen Tennyson were born in December 1994.

- The original series takes place in the summer of 2005. Max turned from 59 to 60, Kevin was 11 going on 12, and Ben and Gwen were 10 going on 11.

- Ben 10: Alien Force takes place between December 2009 and December 2010.

- Ben 10: Ultimate Alien takes place between December 2010 and December 2011.

- The original series episode "Ben 10,000" firmly takes place in the summer of 2025.

- The Ben 10,000 from the Ultimate Alien episode "Ben 10,000 Returns" is most likely from the year 2031.

For mutliple reasons, Omniverse is considered non-canon in this conclusion. For one thing, the erasure of the timeline in "So Long, and Thanks for All the Smoothies" means that no events after this episode can be trusted to be accurate to the original timeline.

Furthermore, the flashback in the episode "Blukic and Driba Go to Area 51" seems to take place during the Roswell UFO incident, which took place in July 1947 when Max would have been only two years old. If Max is 17 in this episode, then the Ben 10 original series would have taken place in 1990, and Omniverse in 1996, which seems impossible given the technological capabilities of the characters in the show (such as efficient cell phones and Internet). As such, due to the canonical disaster of Omniverse, I will not consider it in my calculations.

Thank you, and I hope this interests loyal fans of the series and that my information has not been redundant. To those of you who were born in December 1994, keep in mind that you're a twin of Ben and Gwen Tennyson and that makes you cool. Though if you like Ben 10, you're just cool anyway. Thanks! 