Signalis Timeline: the Eusan Nation, the Penrose Program and Leng

Signalis, rose-engine's 2022 survival horror game, never prints a single date for its world. It mixes three clocks: birth dates in a Rotfront calendar on a medical database, cycle numbers in Ariane Yeong's notes on the Penrose-512, and diary dates such as 84-21-6 at S-23 Sierpinski. None of them are tied together, so this timeline puts events in order and marks every place where that order is inferred rather than stated. It has full spoilers. (Signalis)

How dates work in Signalis#

Each world keeps its own calendar. The medical database Elster downloads on Rotfront gives birth dates as season, period and day, such as 18S 6P a for Ariane, and every entry is written in the Rotfront calendar even when the person was born on Vineta, Kitezh or Leng. (Signalis)

The Penrose-512 counts cycles from launch. Ariane once slowed the ship's clock to make a cycle match a Vinetan day, which suggests a cycle is about a day, but the game never gives its length. (Signalis)

At S-23 Sierpinski, Adler dates his diary entries 84-21-6 through 84-21-D, with the last digit counting up in hexadecimal. Nothing in the game converts these dates into Rotfront years or Penrose cycles, so this page links the three only by story logic. (Signalis)

The Empire (before the Nation)#

The oldest history in the game comes from banned books and propaganda, so even the basics are told by one side or the other.

• The founding: A banned book called Song of the Gods says many believed the Grand Empress was a bioresonant who could "conduct" the hidden song of the cosmos. Her will bent humanity into the Empire of Eusan and lifted it to the stars, and her power gave life to the first Replikas, the "machine-servants" of the Empire. (Signalis)
• Buyan and the palace: The Empire's capital was Buyan, where the Imperial Palace floats above the clouds. Elster's comments at an orrery and a dream recorded in a diary on Rotfront both place it there. (Signalis)
• The Empress's end (interpretation): In the flesh maze below Leng, a shrine holds a crowned, rotting figure and a note that reads like a short life: crowned, a long day where nothing was done, wed, and on the last day she took her life. The game never names the figure. Most players read it as the Grand Empress, which would mean she died by her own hand. (Signalis)

The revolution and the Eusan Nation#

• The break from the Empire: A classified paper on Rotfront, Bioresonance Technology and its Limitations, asks whether the Nation could ever have escaped "the stranglehold of the Empire" without Replikas. So the Eusan Nation won its freedom by rebellion, with Replikas on its side. The game never says how long ago. (Signalis)
• The new leaders: The Nation is led by the Great Revolutionary and her Daughter. Falke units were built to resemble the two of them, according to the Falke overview found at S-23 Sierpinski. (Signalis)
• Bioresonance becomes the Nation's backbone: The same classified paper says klimaforming and induced gravity depend on bioresonance, and that conventional electronics had stagnated for nearly a century while the Nation chased it. That is the only rough span of years anywhere in the game. (Signalis)
• New worlds: By the time of the game the Nation holds Heimat, where AEON has its headquarters, the ice moon Rotfront and the mining world Leng, and calls Kitezh a world that "awaits liberation". Its propaganda promises that Buyan "will burn". (Signalis)
• Rotfront's calendar begins (inferred): The oldest Rotfront-born resident on the medical database was born in season 1, and a retired Replika technician born on Vineta has a negative season, -6. The most natural reading is that the Rotfront calendar counts from the colony's founding. (Signalis)

The war for Vineta#

• The battle: Vineta, called the cradle of mankind on Nation posters, was fought over by the Nation and the Empire. The flashbacks Elster sees in Eternity show trenches, a bright object falling from the sky into the sea and a broken moon. Elster calls it "the ocean world ravaged by war" at the orrery. (Signalis)
• Unit 12: A postcard photo of People's Army, 5th Vinetan Infantry Division, Unit 12 shows soldiers including Alina Seo. Copies of these photos turn up in the Yeong photo store on Rotfront. (Signalis)
• The Elster template: The Penrose Program's classified notes say the Elster unit's neural pattern came from a soldier of Vinetan origin, and warn officers not to talk to the Replika about the war. The flashbacks show this soldier wounded in the right eye and later standing beside Alina. Who she was is never confirmed. (Signalis)
• The archive is lost: The LSTR overview says the original Elster pattern was lost when the central Neural Archive on Vineta was destroyed. New Elster units were then built from a decommissioned unit from the Penrose Program. Since Penrose crews were already flying Elster units, the archive was most likely lost after the Penrose Program began, but the game never gives the order. (Signalis)
• Aftermath: The Nation appears to have kept Vineta. A newspaper in a Rotfront alley reports millions starving under an Imperial blockade of the planet. As with everything the Nation prints, it may be propaganda. (Signalis)

Ariane Yeong's life#

These events come from the medical database, letters and notes found on Rotfront and on the Penrose-512. The order is clear; the gaps between them mostly are not.

• Rotfront season 14: Isolde "Isa" and Erika Itou, twin sisters, were born on Vineta. Their family later ran a bookstore in Rotfront Sektor C. (Signalis)
• Rotfront season 18: Ariane Yeong was born on Leng. She grew up at a remote radio outpost in the mountains with her mother, a radio officer, which is where her teacher later blamed her love of painting and music on. (Signalis)
• School in Sektor C: Ariane moved to Sektor C and attended Mandelbrot Polytechnic High School. She was bullied, and in a flashback three masked students beat her in the library while Isa watched; Erika stepped in, and the three became friends. Her medical record lists insomnia, bruising and premature greying. (Signalis)
• The banned book: Ariane saw a book with a yellow hooded figure on the cover in the window of the Itou bookstore. When she went to buy it, it was gone, and one of the twins told her the Protektors had confiscated it. This is The King in Yellow. (Signalis)
• The photo of Alina: Ariane found a photo of Alina Seo and sent it to her mother, who wrote back that the soldier looked so much like Ariane they could be twins, though no one named Seo was in the family. (Signalis)
• Graduation: Ariane finished school in Sektor C. Her teacher's evaluation called her "remarkably odd" and hoped military service would beat her interest in art out of her. (Signalis)
• Military service: Ariane served at Rotfront Orbital and trained as a long-range radio operations officer. Afterwards she applied to the Penrose Program. AEON told her that if no military programme accepted her, she would be sent to S-23 Sierpinski on Leng. (Signalis)

The Penrose-512#

The Penrose Program sent single human officers into deep space with one Replika each to look for habitable worlds. These dates are Ariane's own cycle numbers.

• Cycle 225: Ariane wrote that she joined the mission to get away from Rotfront, school and the photo store, and that she was finally free. (Signalis)
• Cycle 648: She had started talking to her Replika, an Elster unit later known as Elster or LSTR-512, against the programme's advice not to befriend it. She felt they had both run away from the world together. (Signalis)
• Cycles 888 and 1024: Ariane tried to teach Elster to dance, and wrote that she had never believed she would find someone she could fall in love with like that. These notes are hidden in the Key of Love. (Signalis)
• Undated: Ariane slowed the ship's clock so a cycle matched a day on Vineta, and wondered whether Elster would notice. She guessed from Elster's accent that her template was Vinetan. (Signalis)
• Cycle 1294: Ariane dreamed of her mother listening to a numbers station and taking notes, with the yellow-covered book on her lap. (Signalis)
• Cycle 1500: Phase 2 began. A message from home told the crew to start scanning for resources, habitable worlds and alien life as they neared the Oort Cloud. (Signalis)
• Cycles 1840 and 2503: Ariane wrote that she felt trapped, could not focus, and was losing hair and getting sick. (Signalis)
• Cycle 3000: Phase 3 began. The message from home told the officer to accept that no world would be found, that the ship's systems and reactor shielding would fail, and to ask the Replika to spare her a slow death or to take "permanent rest" in the cryogenic pod. A flashback shows Elster and Ariane celebrating the 3,000th cycle together. (Signalis)
• Cycles 5309 to 5555: Ariane wrote that she was afraid each good night to Elster might be the last, that she was losing teeth and could not sleep, and finally "please, just make it stop". (Signalis)
• Cycle 262144: The last dated note, in smeared text that players have decoded; the cycle number comes from that decoding. Ariane could no longer tell if she was awake or asleep and wrote that everything hurt. (Signalis)
• The end of the voyage: Examining the dead Elster aboard the wrecked ship brings up her last thought: she could not keep her promise, because she fell ill too. Ariane was left in the cryogenic pod. How the ship came to rest in the snow is never shown. (Signalis)

S-23 Sierpinski and the loop (84-21)#

S-23 Sierpinski is an AEON labour and re-education camp on Leng where Gestalt prisoners worked an ammunition factory and a mine under Replika guards. This era is pieced together from Adler's diaries, which survive in several versions that repeat the same dates. The exact order of the versions is inferred.

• Before 84-21-6 (inferred): Protektors searched the prisoners' bunks, confiscated belongings, including some of Alina Seo's, and interrogated workers; two died under interrogation. (Signalis)
• 84-21-6: Adler found a strange box with a dial in storage, confiscated from a worker some time before, and felt drawn to it. Every version of his diary starts here. (Signalis)
• 84-21-7 to 84-21-9 (the first version): Adler and Kolibri reviewed new staff and agreed an LSTR unit was a good investment. At the mine, that Elster unit, part of Excavation Team C, showed Adler surveying equipment, which made him realise the box was an astronomical calendar. (Signalis)
• 84-21-A to 84-21-D: Adler opened the box and found a blank notebook, filled his old diary and started writing in the new one. On 84-21-D the commander, Falke, invited him to a meeting. (Signalis)
• Falke crosses the gate (inferred timing): Falke went beyond a red gate below the mines. Her diary, dated 84-21-A, says the red eye beyond the gate touched and poisoned her, and that her mind filled with another person's memories: a crashed ship, a hole in the ground, a promise. She could no longer tell where Falke ended and Elster began. Because her diary uses a date that also appears in the loop, the game leaves open exactly when this happened. (Signalis)
• The second version: Adler's diary repeats the dates. Kolibri walked out of their meeting, the LSTR unit's delivery was now "delayed", Gestalt workers fell sick, and Adler dreamed of testing a white-haired young woman with cards marked with planets. (Signalis)
• The third version: Kolibri locked herself away, Falke fell ill, Gestalts died faster than they could be treated and Replikas filled the hospital. Adler now remembered the Elster unit as a model no one had ever seen at the facility. Kolibri probed his mind and found the same memory. (Signalis)
• The quarantine: Storch Sieben, the Protektor Controller, put guards on double shifts and asked staff to watch Adler. Alina Seo's diary records the facility locked down, the Elster unit missing "as if she had never been here" and the Protektors turning into monsters. Her last entry, written somewhere deep below, says her hair was turning white and she remembered "a different name, and a different life". (Signalis)
• Adler's final entries: Every entry is now dated 84-21-D. Adler wrote that he remembered "a yesterday that never was", that the facility was like a story being retold until it mutated, and that something was calling him from the mine. (Signalis)

The events of the game#

The game itself begins at the end of all this. See the Signalis story explained for the full plot.

• The crash: Elster woke on the wrecked Penrose-512 in the snow and found the second cryo pod drained and empty. She went through a gate, down a hole and into a bedroom, and picked up The King in Yellow. (Signalis)
• Sierpinski: She came to in a washroom at S-23 Sierpinski, now sure she was looking for Alina Seo. She fought through the facility, met Isa Itou searching for her sister, beat a Mynah and was thrown down a lift shaft by Adler onto a pile of dead Elster units. (Signalis)
• The mines and Nowhere: Elster went down into the mines and the flesh maze below, reached the red gate where a wounded Adler sat, and crossed into a red desert to the Penrose-512, where she fell and died. (Signalis)
• Rotfront: She woke again on the ship, remembered her life with Ariane, and went down through Sierpinski to a dreamlike Rotfront. There she found Ariane's room and, on the main route, defeated Falke, survived a last fight with Adler at the gate and reached the cryo pod. What happened next depends on the ending. (Signalis)

Where the story stands#

The game never says whether the loop ends. Each of the endings finishes on the Penrose-512, with Elster dying and Ariane either dead, still in the pod or dancing with her as a vision under the red eye. The developers have said they did not intend players to replay for other endings, and none is presented as the true one. (Signalis; How the Silent Hill-Inspired SIGNALIS Tried to Forge Its Own Identity)