Oh boy, the PSU timeline. Never thought I'd see that again (or, at least, I hoped
).
For those of you new to the fandom, and by that I mean people that weren't around 12-14 years ago (I'm 26, but I've been around since 1997 or so), there was a bit of a conflict within the ranks regarding which version was more "correct": the English translation or the original Japanese versions of the Phantasy Star games. The solution to a small group was to segregate the two and treat them as entirely different universes (i.e. - The events of the Japanese version, or the supporting guides like World of PS or the PS Compendium, were rendered irrelevant when discussing the English games). This also splintered into different arguments regarding things that were muddled by the English translation, such as Noah being the same person as Lutz.
Many people, myself included, thought that the idea of creating two different "universes" based on some flawed translations was laughable at best, especially since Sega had a marked history of being spotty with translations at the time. It seemed to require a lot of conjecture just to make the premise make any sense, given that changes made in the English versions weren't made consistently nor were they well thought out, and it led to a good number of arguments and some theories being published online that I for one couldn't suspend my disbelief enough to follow. To me, there is one original version (the Japanese) and many different translations/adaptations (the English being one) which never supersede the original should the two state different things.
You can read more
here. You'll note the man who wrote that is one of the people who worked on the PSU project. In my mind, there seems to be a certain desperation in his tone, not to mention his attempts to justify the whole thing (for "Japanese purists", if two staff members disagreed during the storyboarding of the game, then the whole game is rendered invalid?
Really?), but that's just me. I find the whole thing laughable, but I figured I'd give some background as to why the PSU timeline exists ("...a complete timeline and "universe" of theories designed to unite and explain all inconsistencies within the English Phantasy Star continuity.") Note that, while the Japanese continuity isn't perfect even with the supplemental materials, it doesn't seem to require the work that the "English universe" did to make sense. ;p
In any case...
-Corey