TalonCard

This is really interesting...this is one of the few times we've seen the 1989-91 Pirates storyline really flow into the 92-94 Pirate world. The Skull's Eye Schooner seems to be called the Dark Shark II, with Will and Rummy still aboard. The Islander's home is the Island of Fogs, which appears on the Tropical Sea map in the Ladybird books. And Roger can smell gold, which was a character trait established in the Ladybird books. Cool stuff! I'm not sure why the European stories seem determined to have Roger and Quextil be such good friends, when the pirates were obviously pitted against the Islanders in the sets themselves... It does seem to be quite a bit darker than the previous pirates adventures...evil slavers, mention of death, hell, etc. Pretty hard core for a LEGO adventure. :) I have to say, I'm really looking forward to the English translation--Google translate is good for catalog blurbs, but it struggles to make sense of this transcript. Take these quotes: "I have not indulged in only those lubricate the pirates he get away with it." "Because me a brat but an electoral fish, wind?" "Ha ha ha ha, thrice knotted sea serpent, which will be fun. Now Johnny is scar times get the fright of his life. Ha ha, and then I touch him and Iron Hook shoot before his wooden leg, whether now has malaria or not. Ha ha ha ha ha I would love to sail the same time then, but this darn recession." This darn recession indeed, Captain Roger. TC

Bravo, Runamuck! I really enjoyed listening to the audio drama while reading the translation--I've waited for years for new adventures with these characters. You made my day, and I'm very much looking forward to future installments! A few notes: I'm guessing the Cannonball is the Ironram from the Ladybird books. We now know that the population of Sabatina (and possibly the neighboring islands) numbers in the thousands. TC

It's great to see all the little differences between the audio drama and the comic. I can't wait for the next installment!!! TC

So de Martinet's first name is Juan? Interesting... If I send you my e-mail address, could you send me the attachments? TC

Thanks for doing this, Runamuck! I'm really excited about finding out the details of these stories. From what I've read so far, it looks like Governor Broadside is even more corrupt than I thought... TC

True, true. I can't help but think that Time Cruisers would be a more interesting theme nowadays, since there are so many more LEGO time periods to visit. (And LEGO sets to sell! ) TC

True, true. It's also a reference to a medical condition, though, and as he's a minifigure, he does have flat feet. ;) TC

I don't play video games, but I really want that one now...

Just out of curiosity, how specific is the reference to "space shuttles"? Do they mention Launch Command, booster rockets, and the like? Or is it possible that the term space shuttle is just being used to describe a general sort of 36th century spacecraft? But yeah, at this point the only depiction of a "futuristic" Earth city is in a Mindstorms promo CD-ROM, making it the exception rather than the rule. At some point after the 21st century the people of LEGO Earth decided to go back to the way their ancestors had lived in the 80s/90s/2010s. It doesn't seem to make sense, but at least it's consistent...and I can stop fretting about the placement of the Clutch Powers movie. You know, the Mania Magazine only says that "Dr. Cyber was a rocker scientist for NASA. One day, while experimenting with the Hypno Disk, he suddenly blasted into the past!" This would seem to predate the invention of the time machines...so maybe he was experimenting on his own, got blasted into the past, worked for NASA before returning to 3777, and then decided to build time cruiser machines with Tim and company? The Time Cruisers board game also seems to support the notion that time travel is possible using only the Hypno Disk, plus most of the English language sources indicate that Tim and Cyber built their time machines out of parts they found in other time zones...so some degree of time travel had to have been going on even before they built the machines. So Cyber's personal timeline could look something like this: Cyber discovers an ancient map revealing the secrets of time travel. (Bricks 'n Pieces, UK catalog) (Perhaps the map had the location of the Hypno Disk?) Cyber experiments with Hypno Disk, is blasted back in time. (Mania Magazine) (To the days of NASA?) Cyber becomes a NASA rocket scientist. (Mania Magazine) (Dr. Cyber returns to his present?) No one believes Cyber has discovered time travel, so Cyber sends a group of Time Cruisers into the past to collect artifacts. (Time Cruisers board game.) Tim and Doctor Cyber begin constructing time machines in their lab, but the Minister of Past and Future forbids any expeditions in these vehicles. (Time Cruisers #1: Testflight TC 13) Of course, LEGO has also provided an alternate explanation for the Time Cruisers weirdness, but I'm not at all fond of it... Well, as Aanchir points out, it wasn't expected that character and set names would be consistent from country to country back in the 90s. Adventurers is arguably the theme that started a trend toward greater consistancy, but even their names and backstories varied wildly during the first few years of the theme. I'm guessing that the names Cyber and Tim came from the LEGO team that developed the theme, since they're surprisingly consistant in Europe and the US, but everything else was up for grabs. All the background information isn't easily compatible, but it's all pretty cool. The gizmo/hat thing can be easily explained, though--given that the gizmo keeps malfunctioning, perhaps Cyber ultimately replaced it with telepathic hats? ;) Do these audio dramas mention the Hypno Disk at all, by the way? Yay! My thoughts: Given that the Time Cruisers sat idle for five months and this last episode is set in March of 3777, it seems likely that much of the backstory--Cyber's map discovery, Hypno Disk experiments, the board games, and the construction of the time machines--took place in 3776 or earlier. 1602 is a problematic date for the Pirates theme. For one thing, it's pretty darn early--most pirate stories take place in the 1650-1680 or 1717-1726 golden ages of piracy. (A lot of pirate fiction extends the latter period to the entirety of the 18th century.) But it's doubly inconsistent in the LEGO world: the American Pirate set boxes and Netherlands catalog explicitly place the Pirate sets in the 18th century, while the German audio dramas released by the same company the year before were set in 1642 and 1645. I'm inclined to think that the gizmo may have been off by at least a couple of decades. ;) Is Captain Red Beard actually referred to as "Roger Redbeard" in this story? He was called Captain Roger in most of Europe, but Red Beard in the US. This would be the first time I've seen them used together. The lack of country borders is an interesting element of 3777 Earth--it's nice to see that there has been some social changes even if the day-to-day technology remains largely the same... Redbeard's ancestors being from Spain is a fascinating bit of new information. In the American storyline for the Pirates, it explained that the soldiers were finding buried Spanish gold coins belonging to the pirate's ancestors. This new information is consistant with that, and itthis changes my view of the Pirates slightly, as I had previously assumed that their ancestors were pirates themselves. Red Beard may have a legitimate claim to the treasure after all... It's kind of hilarious to see Paradisa contrasted with the world of smugglers. The Wild West city is called "Gold City Junction" in the US and "Silver City" in the UK. Legoredo City is more accurate because there are no less than three signs in the city set itself that say "Legoredo". It is evidently intended to be the same city that has been a feature of the original LEGOLAND since the 1970s. A radio in the Wild West setting is anachronistic, but I'm guessing the kid who built it is supposed to be a kid genious... It's interesting that the writers of these audio dramas seem to feel it was neccesary to include a trip to nearly every LEGO theme in every story... Thanks for posting that! It'll be really useful for reference purposes; a lot of the set names have vanished into obscurity now that the US names seem to have become standard. Are you a Castle fan? I'd been thinking about starting a similar story/locations thread for Castle... TC

Thank you for pointing that out...my source for Chief White Eagle is a 1983 issue of Bricks 'n Pieces magazine. I'm not sure if Chief Longears is the current name for the same character, or if there are supposed to be multiple chiefs, or if the name was just misreported in the magazine. It honestly never occurred to me to check the current LEGOLand website; I keep thinking of LEGOREDO as an old attraction but obviously it's still operating... TC

As far as I know, the Mania Magazine never gave the Indians any kind of names or backstory--they were just sort of there. We did have the sets, but I think there was at least one set that was never released in the US... TC

Interesting...the cabin boy's name English name is "Jimbo", he appears in several of the Ladybrid books as well. TC

I wouldn't think so...I wouldn't even say for sure that LEGO's 7th cavalry is intended to represent the real one either, but it's useful for timeline speculation. Sorry, it's in the UK catalog, not Brick 'n Pieces. Here's the link; it's in the (teeeny tiny) text for the "Fort Apache" set. :) TC

I would definitely appreciate it! All this new information is incredibly exciting--I'm particularly pleased to see some of the previously-unidentified comic book characters getting names. :) As expected, the dates here don't really match up with the US and Netherlands 18th century settings, but what can you do? Also, the historical Pierre Lafitte was born in 1770. TC

Either that or I just think waaaaaay too much about this stuff. ;) I'm not sure where Brickipedia got that from...Mania Magazine definitely calls him Colonel Colt Carson. (Gotta love the alliteration!) All the other sources I've seen that name the cavalry officers use the rank of colonel as well. The LEGOLand Indian Chief's name is White Eagle. In the UK the Indian Chief's name is "Big Chief Rattlesnake". Given that there are multiple names for most of the Wild West characters, it's possible they're the same, but I doubt we'll ever find out one way or the other. (By the way, that UK Magazine article is hilarious, and would probably have been offensive here in the states. It's cute that the writer tried to avoid troublesome stereotypes, but I never would have believed anyone would use the phrase "Red Indians" to describe Native Americans in 1997. :p ) I think you're right... Set and character names didn't start getting globally consistent until about 1999, not long after the Internet had become become ubiquitous, and right around the time the storylines and characters took on greater importance. Since then it seems like the American set names have become standard for the older sets, retroactively. (I do remember a brief time when international discussions and catalogs would use only the set numbers, but they aren't particularly memorable and it was a pain having to check reference sites all the time.) Even here on Eurobricks everyone knows what you're talking about when you say "Black Seas Barracuda", but perhaps not so for "Darkshark". (The Black Falcons was a faction name popularized by fans to the point that LEGO started picking up on it. At the time they were indeed Eagle Knights, and seemed to be folded into the Black Knights when they came along.) I'm not sure if this is something LEGO fans have settled on, or if it's the result of an internal policy at LEGO, but it's interesting. Occasionally you'll see official LEGO Books use the UK names for old sets, so there's probably some internal confusion there... The problem with that story is that some of the other tales are about the ghost of Butch Cassidy and the ghost town of Garnet, Montana. Butch Cassidy wasn’t reported dead until 1908, and Garnet wasn’t truly abandoned until around ten years after that. The story can work as a sort of final reflection on the West by an older set of characters, but I doubt the Wild West theme itself is set in 1918. The 7th Cavalry mentioned in the UK catalog is a real regiment, and could help to date the Wild West theme somewhat—the Cavalry was involved in a gold rush shortly before the Great Souix War in the mid 1870s, apparently, so that's the date I use. It's possible the German audio dramas have a more exact date; we'll have to see about that... TC

Maybe it's not so far fetched that NASA would still be around too. Does it state that they're still in the year 3777 in the second episode? Maybe they relocated to 1996 in between episodes... Alternatively, the Clutch Powers movie and the Captain Indigo comics both seem to show a "future" Earth that's little different from the time in which those stories were produced. Maybe this is just a thing in the LEGO Universe: Town is always retro. :p I feel like Christmas came early, and there's a big LEGO set under the tree... Bricks 'n Pieces magazine describes an Explorien mission in the year 3200, so it's possible that LEGO Space takes place before and during Time Cruisers... The July-August 1996 LEGO Mania Magazine. You can check out the scans here; the way the site is makes it hard to link directly to specific issues. Really! :) The magazine story starts with the King saying "Tonight I'm going to tell you a true story about another King who was also called Richard the Lionheart..." Also, the name "Doctor Science" is so ridiculous that it's actually awesome. I wish I could go back in time and change my Eurobricks name to "Doctor Science"... TC

Oky, you're my hero. :) This is exactly the kind of information I was hoping for! Would you mind if I put edited versions of these summaries in the timeline I'm working on? So did the American storyline, which stated that Dr. Cyber was a NASA scientist when he performed his first experiments with the Hypno Disc, which sent him into the past...Oky, does the story leave open any possibility that Cyber traveled to the year 3777 before the events of the story? (Of course, with time travel, it's equally possible that Dr. Cyber eventually traveled back in time to become a NASA scientist, and perform the first Hypno Disc experiments...wibbly wobbly, timey wimey paradox....) King Richard is the Royal King's name in the UK Bricks 'n Pieces magazine, so that checks out. (The same issue explains that he is not the same King Richard as the historical king of England.) This gives me a definite year to start dating the other Castle themes! (It also makes sense that Richard would believe the Time Cruiser's story--Captain Indigo traveled to the castle time period a lot. I just want to check and make sure that 1986 isn't a typo, as it would seem to make more sense that those sets would be in 1996. TC

It's funny you should ask this, I was just researching Wild West for my LEGO timeline today... Given that the original LEGO Western town at LEGOLAND Billund is called "Legoredo", it's not surprising that LEGO set designers would call their Western fort and town Legoredo as well. As you point out, there are signs for Legoredo all over the town, and a mighty large one on the fort. But for some reason, magazine and catalog copywriters decided to name the locations themselves, signage be damned. In the UK, they changed the names to Fort Apache and Silver City. This catalog also calls the fort "Fort Redo" on the very same page as the Fort Apache name! The main bandit was called Prairie Pete (of the Coyote Gang), even though he had a wanted poster naming him "Flatfoot Thomsen". The US, slightly more sensibly, left the Fort Legoredo name intact, and almost got Flatfoot Thomsen's name right (he became "Flatfoot Thompson"). But they still left us with the clearly inaccurate "Gold City Junction" name, and since the US set names have been more or less retroactively adopted universally, we're stuck with it. I'd say the town's name is definitely Legoredo (there are three signs right in the set!), but "Gold City" could be a nickname. As for the characters, a lot of them did get names from various sources: In the US, the September-October LEGO Mania club magazine dubbed the Sheriff "Wild Wyatt West". In the UK, he was Sheriff Duke. The German audio dramas bundled with some of the sets called him Sheriff Silver. He also got a deputy named Danny. The Calvary Colonel was named Colt Carson in the US, Colonel Thomson in Germany and (IIRC) Colonel Jefferson elsewhere in Europe, Zack's name comes from the August 1996 Bricks 'n Pieces UK magazine, where he's described as an older prospector. (I suspect that the same figure is intended to be Danny, the young deputy from the German audio dramas.) The Mania Magazine also names a number of other characters: Black Bart, Dewey Cheatum, and Flatnose Curry. The German audio dramas name the bank manager Goldpenny. There are a number of other named characters from the audio dramas, but assigning them to figures is guesswork at best. You can check out the cast lists here, here, and here. You can check out the relevant Bricks 'n Pieces and Mania Magazines here. They're pretty cool, especially if you're into the LEGO characters like I am. TC (PS: Wait, if I was around for the initial release of the Wild West theme, does that mean I'm an old timer?!) ;)

Yup, it's that way in the Ladybird books too. It's alright if you use the UK name Darkshark for Red Beard's ship, as the books and presumably the audio dramas do, but if you default to the better known Black Seas Barracuda it becomes confusing. ;) If I were trying to write an official reference guide I'd be tempted to pull a Sam Sinister and just switch the two names...or suggest that the reason Foul hates Red Beard is because he stole his ship's name. TC

Thanks Mister Phes! :) I also found a brick-built Captain Foul on the cover of the 1993 Pirates Expo program guide...if only we had scans of the whole thing! TC

I noticed that as well...I even checked both editions to be sure. I think I found the reason for the confusion, though: in the Space Police Logs PeabodySam was kind enough to provide, the Classic Space statue is said to be in "Futuron Park". I have Selva listed as a planet already, and I'm assuming that the name of the galaxy it is in is also Selva. It is darn confusing--it's Ice Planet 2002/Krysto all over again. I think it's reasonable to assume that Selva is also home to the planets introduced in the Bug Battle game, but I'm interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on that. I've gone back and forth on whether they're related. Judging from the Frand Masden interview in Brickjournal, any resemblance is a coincidence as he was unaware of any stage of Blacktron's development. But it's really tempting to classify them as "Blacktron: Generation Zero", given the similarities. Blacktron's logo seems to change every time the theme gets redeveloped anyway... It's certainly not hard to imagine that Kazak fled the Unknown Galaxy for the center of the galaxies, where he landed on the planet Blacktron... You're right; it ought to be brought up to the level Holox is now, at least. I'll be adding some detail in the next update. I'm starting to wonder if it was ever published at all; no one seems to have it. Of course, I was also thinking the same thing about "The Robber Baron" until Jamesster was awesome enough to post pictures and scans, so maybe it'll turn up one day. BTW, I got the digital version of the Brickjournal issue (thanks for posting the issue number, Jamesster), and it's definitely worth the $4--lots of pictures from the cancelled Spaceborn comics and some (scant) plot details, plus a description of a pre-Jim Spaceborn storybook using pictures of actual LEGO models--if only LEGO would release all this from their vaults! It's nice to see a sort of core group forming around this thread--there really aren't that many people interested in the various official storylines. For my own sanity, I tend to group the LEGO Universe into three intersecting universes: the Maniac's fantasies, the LEGO Island world, and the general world of LEGO themes--but it's interesting to see them put together like that. Are you still updating Constructopedia? I'm beginning to think you may be right--perhaps I was influenced by the Star Wars Expanded Universe, which, IIRC, used to refer to things from the Jovan system as "Jovian". The Jovian cosmic storms were also referenced in the Space Police Logs, which is part of what led me to group all three references together. EDIT: I went back to check the Logs: "Weather tampering, 04:19 a.m., Jovan II. Caught Kranxx messing with weather-domination capsule above the Jovian cosmic storm." So at least in the instance of the Cosmic Storm, "Jovian" does refer to something from Jovan II. It's possible that the Blockodile is from Jupiter, but it's probably equally reasonable to assume it's from Jovan II. Let me know if the link turns up...I'll make a note to look for it the next time I hit the Wayback Machine. (I hear you about it being unreliable--it took me forever and a day to squeeze all the information I could out of the old Adventurers websites for the timeline I'm working on.) Strangely, the article seems to call the second Jim Spaceborn book "Castle of the Darkmen" rather than "Kidnappers from Swamp Planet". I'll put Swamp Planet in the next update; I'd like to see a copy of the book to get everything in context, but that's not looking likely at this point. Thanks! I'm patient. :) I agree; I would tend to think of Zonia as an early space colony that later overshadowed Earth in terms of galactic influence. Not real fond of the name (why would they call themselves "Classic" Space Command), but it is good to know they have an official name. Here's a question for you guys: I found a TECHNIC planet in , but I don't think it's actually named. Do you think it's the planet TECHNIC itself (it certainly seems to be labled as such), or Cyber World from the Cyber Slammers theme?TC

Found another named pirate--I finally unearthed a Brickshelf gallery of the incredibly obscure Captain Roger's Activity Book. Page 7 has a list of ship's rules, which includes the statement: "Pirates with wooden legs must never try to stamp out fires. (Old Percy was burned to the ground last September!)" TC

Thanks. Jacob. Oh, if only we could peek into the LEGO archives... I've finally had time to read the whole comic, and I think I like it better than the Unknown Galaxy. The gags are funnier, starting on the very first page, and the villain is better developed. The kid characters are likable, but flawed. One of the best parts is how well building is integrated into the story--it's neat to see the castle take shape. That said, the LEGO people aren't translated to cartoon form as well as in the Spaceborn comic; sometimes they even look more like muppets than minifigures. Having the Baron's men be involved in the construction of the castle so they can take it over later is clever, but since they just walk through the front door I don't see how their knowledge of its construction really helped. But otherwise it's so good that it's a real shame we only have handful of decent LEGO comic books. :( TC

I'm a little confused--were worlds like Portabello and DeepFreeze part of Crux at one point? Or are they other worlds in the Nimbus system? TC

That's entirely possible--my main source for Hero Factory is the Hero Factory wiki; I don't know a lot about the storyline. Do you have access to the cartoons and comics? Yes indeed! I'm glad you've made your way here. :) Judging from the Constructopedia Wiki I can see that we have slightly different perspectives on the LEGO Universe, but I'm always excited to find anyone who is as interested in the minutiae of it as I am. Thank you for providing such an extensive list (with pre-written entries, even!) A few notes: An earlier version of the list did speculate Jupiter as the home of the Jovian blockodiles, but after reading of the planet Jovan II in the Space Police Logs I figured that was most likely the intended planet of origin for the cosmic storms and blockodiles. Neptune: what's your source for the incident with Captain McReynolds here? I know Greg Hyland did a comic with Star Justice and the Star Skulls, but I haven't been able to find more than a few panels. Was it the comic, or a website, or did the set box have character information? Pluto is not technically a planet. ;) Gallant 5 and Ninjago were already on the list. I'd definitely like to go into more detail on the separate splanet shards of Crux and Bara Magna, but I don't have the sources handy. If you do and you'd be willing to write the entries, please feel free! Thank's for the clarification on Kazak--your initial post had me running for my copy of Unknown Galaxy. :) Kazak's citadel is on the recently-conquered Robus in the comic, but it doesn't say where he had been based before...I certainly wouldn't put it past him to name a planet after himself. Let me know if you find anything in Brickjournal...is this the issue with the Marsden interview I've been hearing about? I'd really like to track that one down. I had been putting off adding the Swamp Planet to the list until I had read the comic, as I thought the planet might be named there. Do you have a copy of Kidnappers from Swamp Planet? I'd love to hear more about it; no one seems to have it. :( I've gone ahead and added Castle Planet to the list, though in my head I always wanted to assume that it was the same as Ashlar. You make a good point about the reference to "another universe" in the commercial, though. Oh thank goodness; Exo-Force has been driving me nuts. What's the source for that? Now if only they'd come out and say the same about Legends of Chima... About those systems, sectors, etc... Eventually I'd like to move to a more all-encompassing guide to the LEGO Universe, as it's becoming clear that sticking only to planets is pretty limiting--there are lots of other intriguing cosmic objects. Grouping them by system would make sense too, and then by galaxy if possible. Judging from the Space Villian bio we have at least seven galaxies. I can think of the Milky Way, the Whirlpool Galaxy, the Unknown Galaxy, and the Selva Galaxy off the top of my head...does anyone know if others have been named? TC