The Wish timeline

[burrunjor]

I thought for fun lets try and work out how The Wish timeline ended up the way it did?

How did Buffy never end up in Sunnydale? What became of Spike and Dru? How did Angel end up imprisoned etc. Also what do you think happened after? Okay we know that Giles changed it, but let's just say there is an alternate universe where he didn't and the Wishverse is still going on. (I always assumed that's where Vampire Willow came from.)

I'm going to say it goes like this.

Buffy after staking Lothos tells her parents about it which leads to them trying to institutionalise her, so she flees and ends up living life on the lamb, until a Watcher finds her and gives her accomodation in Cleveland. However Buffy's rebellious spirit causes her to have a bad relationship with him or her. Being rejected by her parents, living desperately, and fighting Lothos etc have had a bad effect on the Buffster.

I reckon Angel and Giles teamed up to fight The Master. Together they barely managed to stop The Harvest.

Later when the Master started to open the Hellmouth from below, Angel and Giles, without Buffy perhaps went to greater lengths and discovered a spell that could seal the Hellmouth, not permanently, but temporarily. (Explaining why the earth hasn't been sucked into hell.)

The Master still rises as Willow and Xander, being more modern are able to fly under the radar a lot more than the Masters old, archaic Vamp minions. They are able to bring him more prey and The Master in a one on one fight kicks the shit out of Angel and keeps him locked up.

With Angel gone, Giles is forced to gather together a team. (We can assume that Jenny also still comes to Sunnydale to monitor Angel, and sadly is either meat for the Master, or is still alive, but not in a relationship with Giles. I'd like to think she is alive, so that some things are better in the Wishverse.)

Spike and Dru, I can imagine showing up in Sunnydale, getting along with the Master at first due to him respecting Spike and Drusilla's penchant for cruelty. I'd like to think that it was Spike who also convinced the Master to live above ground and have more modern equipment.

I personally think the Master doesn't just rule Sunnydale, but has an entire empire.

Vampires all over the world worship the Master and after he rises and takes over a small town, several other Vampires start to do the same. Small towns even cities are ruled by Vampires. Some are out like Sunnydale, whilst others, perhaps it's more behind the scenes, like the Vampires control the police etc. Maybe Lothos is still alive. (Perhaps Buffy told her parents before she slayed him and fled before his attack on Hemery High. As a result Lothos now rules over LA.)

All of these towns are connected loosely at least to Sunnydale, with the Master being the Vampire overlord (this explains why Buffy knows about him in The Wish, why Giles and Anyanka say the WORLD is different. Sunnydale isn't the world. IMO it's effects have to be beyond Sunnydale.)

With this in mind Spike and Dru I reckon are probably Vampire king and Queen of another town in California, as the Master will hav sent them there, and they'd probably rather be rulers of some place than in his court. (Maybe Spike and Dru rule over Santa Carla LOL)

As for what happens next, well I reckon Kendra is too old to be the Slayer by this point and so Faith is called. Faith's first watcher is killed by Kakistos, After this Wesley becomes Faith's watcher and they both are sent to Sunnydale to try and take down the Vampire king The Master to stop their numbers growing.

How it goes from there however? Who knows. Maybe Faith get's her own Scooby gang made up of who's left. Tara as far as we know is alive and can join Faith. Gunn would probably head to Sunnydale. Again he would know that the Vampire empire comes from Sunnydale, so realistically he'd head there and meet up with Faith.

Faith's Scooby gang would therefore consist of herself, Wesley, Gunn, Giles, Tara and maybe if he escaped, Oz.

I'm not sure how they would deal with the Master, though it would be fun to see.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

Maybe Spike and Dru rule over Santa Carla LOL

They'd call it by the real name of Santa Cruz. The only reason why the Lost Boys used Santa Carla is because the Santa Cruz officials didn't like the idea of being known as the "murder capital of the world".

The Wishverse doesn't exist before Cordelia makes the wish and you could even argue that reality is trying to course correct because Buffy does come to town. Since the Wishverse starts with the wish and ends with Giles breaking the amulet (hence why the episode then goes back to the moment where Cordelia makes the wish and Anya is unable to grant it), the question is, is the wishverse now trapped on a time loop. Doppelgangland pulls out Vampire Willow who shouldn't exist because the Wishverse was undone, but if the Wishverse is stuck on a loop (hence why Vampire Willow still exists even though she shuldn't) then that means all the Wishverse characters are constantly reliving the day they died for all eternity.

 

[burrunjor]

They'd call it by the real name of Santa Cruz. The only reason why the Lost Boys used Santa Carla is because the Santa Cruz officials didn't like the idea of being known as the "murder capital of the world".

The Wishverse doesn't exist before Cordelia makes the wish and you could even argue that reality is trying to course correct because Buffy does come to town. Since the Wishverse starts with the wish and ends with Giles breaking the amulet (hence why the episode then goes back to the moment where Cordelia makes the wish and Anya is unable to grant it), the question is, is the wishverse now trapped on a time loop. Doppelgangland pulls out Vampire Willow who shouldn't exist because the Wishverse was undone, but if the Wishverse is stuck on a loop (hence why Vampire Willow still exists even though she shuldn't) then that means all the Wishverse characters are constantly reliving the day they died for all eternity.

IMO the Vamp Willow from The Wish was just pulled from an alternate universe. If we follow the idea of alternate universes having similar but different histories, then one surely must exist like the Wish. Either it just followed that history naturally, or Giles wasn't able to snatch the Amulet.

Whatever the case in all of those universes there are bound to be billions that follow the Wish timeline.

 

[nightshade]

I would guess that they didn't stop the Harvest and that's why the Master is no longer trapped.

 

[spikenbuffy]

Dru needed the ritual to recover her health (DuLac), I ask myself what happened in this universe about it, Angel is alive and chained by Vampire Willow despite Spike and Dru needed for the ritual.

 

[RachaelJurassic]

Ok so Jenny, who has been skulking about and not really interacting with the gang, finally comes out of hiding now that Angel is dust. She definitely needs to end up with the new scoobies so she can do some quality arguing with Giles. Eventually arguing turns to more fun activities and she manages to get him off the dangerous combo of scotch and prescription drugs, which she finds immediately since Giles is making NO attempt to hide them out there on his kitchen top!

OK, maybe that's just wish fulfillment

 

[darkspook]

I always wished somehow did a Wish universe every year kinda like what DS9 did with the 'mirror' universe.
For example in season 4 you still had Giles and Oz (if you did the episode quick before Seth Green left) so maybe have Buffy be taken there. She could meet a colder more military version of Riley or even an unchipped feral Spike.

 

[Myheadsgonenumb]

I guess Buffy just got sent to the Cleveland hellmouth instead of the Sunnydale one - Giles intimates that the watchers play a role in her ending up in that town so presumably there was some last minute change of plan and they organised things for her to move to Ohio instead. Giles was obviously already in place and expecting her (they probably never even told him about the change of plans - they never seem to hold him in high regard). Because Buffy only finds out about the Harvest from Angel, the Harvest takes Giles and the watchers council by surprise and they are unable to stop it.

Angel is also already in town waiting for Buffy (like he says) he doesn't do anything to stop the Harvest (like in canon). Once the vampires take over the town maybe he tries to do something to help the humans but gets captured. The Master chooses to keep him alive but imprisoned because eternal suffering is more fun for the master than death.

Willow and Jesse were kidnapped the night before the Harvest, as per the show, but no Buffy came to save them. Jesse was killed (no need to be bait) but the master saw something in Willow and turned her instead. She then turned Xander after the Harvest. The one thing that doesn't make sense is that Cordelia should already be dead in the wishverse because she was at the Harvest and only wasn't killed due to Buffy's timely intervention. I guess in the wishverse she stayed home that night and did her homework.

Spike and Drusilla - it depends when the attack by the angry mob was. If it happened before the Harvest then Drusilla would still be weak, if it happened after then they might have already left Prague in this reality and come to America to see Hell on earth, so she would never be weakened in the first place. If Drusilla was always strong they might have stopped by Sunnydale but then decided not to stick around as they were never ones for rituals and bowing and scraping to masters.
If Drusilla was already attacked and weakened - then they go to Sunnydale for two reasons in the show - one for the hellmouth to help restore Dru and two to kill the slayer. It's just a happy accident that she ends up in the same town as the key to her cure; they don't know they need Angel and they don't know he is there when they arrive in the show. So in a world where the slayer is living on a different hellmouth, Spike and Dru would have gone to Cleveland not Sunnydale. And as Buffy is still alive ... I think that means Spike and Dru are probably dead.

What happened next? Not much. Maybe Oz and Larry and Giles survive the night but Buffy is dead and so is Angel. Xander and Willow are dead but the vampires are not defeated - the master is still alive, so he continues his plans for mass production. Kendra is called but, as Buffy never went to Sunnydale before Giles requested her, there is no reason to think Kendra would come to town - she has a whole world to protect. At some point she would be killed - though not by Dru - and Faith would take over. Faith would not go evil, but she would probably be killed quite quickly as well - maybe by Kakistos - maybe by another demon, as the world spirals more and more out of human control. Then there would be another slayer and another and another - things would not get better - the whitehats in Sunnydale would continue to be picked off one at a time and the master would rule the world forever.

 

[Hairsprayisfab]

I think the mayor did rise during the acention and battled the master for control. Becoming a savior. Glory shows up and rips through the snake like it was tissue paper. But in this reality can't find the key.


So Glory starts to become more human. Feeling emotions from Ben until she kills herself or decides to become a superhero to deal with the guilt. The trio never gets together and the first evil never has a shot at global domination

 

[Mr. Pointy]

This thread reminded me of the sadly failed BB Wishverse fanfic project from a good few years ago.
I can't remember much of the specifics but we had a whole load of BB writers and artists collaborating on Wishverse-based stories, including (IIRC) some of the events which preceded those shown in the actual episode. I was part of the editing team, helping artists and writers put their work together. In the end it proved to be a tad over-ambitious - some participants fell out with each other, some left the boards, deadlines were missed, real life got in the way etc. etc. - but some of the work that I saw was pretty tremendous.
We had (and continue to have ) such talented members.