Theory Two-Timeline Oddities

(In which Invid explains what a heck is up with the current timeline. )


Part One-Thrax

Thrax presents an interesting conundrum for the long-time Power Rangers fan, such as myself.

First, he's an immensely fun character. As the son of Zedd and Rita, he actually looks like he's related to Zedd and has Rita's vocal and physical mannerisms-a hilarious and well-executed combination.

Second, the episode in which he was involved was a very good nostalgia episode, featuring frequent references to older continuity and proving that the writers haven't completely forgotten the monolithic fifteen year history of the metafranchise.

However, the third point is a rather significant problem: Thrax remarked that he once battled the Sentinel Knight, who was dormant until modern times after the sealing of the Corona Aurora. The sealing of the Corona Aurora was clearly established as happening when all of Earth's continents were still merged as Pangaea (for the record, about 270 million years ago)!

And Thrax can't really be more than the chronological equivalent of a prepubescent child during his Operation Overdrive appearance. Yet he was supposedly sealed for ages in a very familiar sort of space dumpster, and had all the knowledge of a rather sophisticated, elder, experienced Power Rangers type villain.

You've probably already surmised just what my solution to the difficulties this creates is if you've read my other essay. (Thrax is a time traveller.) I just want to add a few notes:

First, Sentinel Knight must get his space dumpsters from the same supply store as Zordon, which might actually have been Zordon's supply store. (More on that at some other time.)

Second, Thrax could only have been born at one of two times in the series: Either during Turbo, where Zedd and Rita mysteriously (and rather conveniently) disappeared until the next season, or after Zedd and Rita were transformed into dancin' fools. (There is also the shorter gap between the beginning of Zeo and when they start showing up again in that season, but it was a rather brief one, so it's less likely. And there is also the outside possibility that Thrax was an illegitimate child that Zedd and Rita had hundreds of millions of years ago, but let's be realistic here.)

So the real question is, would it be "possible" for the "good" Zedd and Rita to have produced a twisted, sicko puppy child like Thrax?

My vote is, probably not. First off, what "decent" parent would name his or her child after a disease?

Second... Er, no second.

Anyway, so probably, Thrax was a child born under great secrecy, and hidden away (possibly in the past) in such a way that he was not affected by the Zordon Bomb. (Upon learning that Rito did not appear in the PRiS finale, my sister suggested that perhaps Rito was sent back with him as a caretaker. In-universe explanations for costume damage-related facts for the win.)

There is one other explanation, that being that, since Rita was selected to be the Empress of Good Magic of Mystic Force, Zedd was left bitter and alone (I sure didn't see him around, although the Master sounded a bit like him), and did a lousy job of raising the kid.

Or it could be that they were just normal sized in the back of the big magical cloudy palace thing, and nobody noticed them because the Empress was so darned big. (cough)

Not terribly likely, though, because of the whole Rita mannerism thing, unless that was actually genetic...


Part Two-The Near Future

SPD supposedly takes place about twenty years after the series itself airs. RPM, it appears, also takes place after it airs (at least four years later, depending on how one wants to interpret it).

The events of RPM (the extermination of humanity except for a handful who escape to shelters such as Corinth) kind of make things... iffy for SPD. RPM has to take place sometime before SPD because if the Space Patrol Delta organization exists, it's pretty much impossible for Venjix to pose a serious threat. (Venjix: "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave-wait, where did you get that giant cannon-shaped Megazord, Dave?") And if it takes place before, well... SPD's existence is threatened for a variety of reasons, most notably the fact that SPD's normal-sized populations couldn't exist after a catastrophe of that magnitude.

There's a related problem-Terra Venture. If you remember, in Lost Galaxy Earth had the technology and resources to build a huge space platform capable of long-distance space travel. How come this stuff isn't still around after two or three more seasons?

Well, let's start with Terra Venture. We don't know what happened to the Dark Fortress after PRiS. Let's presume, since it, like Terra Venture, is frakkin' huge, it was heavily salvaged for purposes of building Terra Venture, and its superstructure, which has vague similarities, was used as the core of Terra Venture's superstructure. (However, it should be noted that Terra Venture was way bigger than the Fortress-they probably bankrupted a few dozen countries building the darned thing. It is also possible that Terra Venture was in fact older, and had been salvaged from something else... I think the writers kinda forgot where they were sometimes. Look here for a bit more info on Terra Venture's... oddities. One intimation is that they actually lifted substantial portions of land from somewhere to use as the ground...)

Anyway, I would suppose that the disappearance of this various advanced technology over time (the post Lightspeed Rescue/Time Force era-these two seasons contrasted with later ones have a lot of disparity) may simply be related to economics. In effect, the companies that can make this sophisticated technology vanished in the intermediate time period because it's darned expensive to make it, and any returns thereof may be the result of their tech passing on to other companies. This is actually supported a bit by the fact that there are apparently warehouses out there which have old Power Rangers tech in them, and for that matter the Angel Grove junkyard must be a treasure trove, since it probably has Machine Empire monster and cog bits in it, and definitely has Zord parts (!) recycled by Billy at some point.

And this tech is apparently only useful for fighting invaders, so it can't be that profitable. Uh huh. Yep, perfectly logical.

So the big question that remains, then, is that of the population. But I think this one also solves itself, at least to some degree.

To wit: "Earth isn't the only place where humans live."

Earth may have been extensively repopulated by the "space colonies," including but not necessarily limited to KO-35 and Mirinoi/Terra Venture. (My sister remarks that "the guys in SPD were kinda weird," but I'm not sure that's valid evidence...) This theory would also explain why, a mere twenty or so years into the future, the population of Earth has such a high proportion of aliens-they were the space humans' neighbors, and followed them. (I mean they were figuratively neighbors. Trade partners, things like that. Not neighbors in the sense of that one guy from the Super Sentai GoGo V/Timeranger crossover movie, who looked just like Vexicon/Blaster Mad and claimed to be his identical neighbor [because there were a number of recycled costumes claiming to be relatives of the originals].) This idea is certainly not hurt any by the fact that KO-35, at least, was mentioned in an episode of SPD as the planet where an alien criminal had been previously imprisoned.

Obviously, this particular theory will either look better over time, or a lot worse.

It should also be noted that, counting this year, the year SPD aired, and the year Lost Galaxy aired, there have been three different years now since Power Rangers started where there isn't an existing Power Rangers team on Earth for the year (based on the assertion made many times that each series airs during the year it "occurs").