Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Peripheral, season 1, episodes 1-6The Peripheral, Amazon Prime Video's hit science fiction series, tells a tale that spans decades, making The Peripheral's full timeline somewhat confusing. Most of the action takes place in either 2032 or 2100, with Flynne Fisher and others from 2032 able to visit the future thanks to the quantum tunneling technology of 2100. The show's time travel allows people in an earlier era to project their consciousness into the future. Those in the future cannot experience the physical world of the past firsthand, but they can communicate with people in earlier eras.
The Peripheral avoids the causation paradoxes that plague many time travel stories by specifying early on that communications from the future to the past create branching alternate timelines. Thus, while their own timeline stays intact, The Peripheral's future-era characters can toy with the past and never worry about affecting their own reality. The Research Institute of the future refers to the branching timelines as "stubs," and the show's earlier 2032 setting is actually in one such stub. Here's The Peripheral's full timeline explained.
The 2020s or Earlier - Birth of the Stub Timeline
The Peripheral season 1 has yet to divulge when the Research Institute of 2100 first alters Flynne, Burton, and Conner's timeline. However, from what's been shown in the first six episodes, it must have been earlier than 2028. As Grace tells Flynne in The Peripheral season 1, episode 5, "What About Bob?", the Research Institute set up its shell defense contractors early enough to install futuristic haptic technology in soldiers' bodies by 2028. So the stub timeline branched off from the main timeline in the early- to mid-2020s, or even earlier depending on when The Peripheral's Research Institute made its earliest incursion into the past.
2028 in the Stub
The Peripheral season 1, episode 6 shows Burton, Conner, Macon, and others fighting a war in Texas in 2028. The soldiers all have the Research Institute's haptic implants, so the scene is in the stub timeline. They speak of Texans as their enemies, so it's safe to infer that America is fighting a civil war in this period. The scene shows how Conner loses his limbs in 2028 due to the Research Institute's behavioral experiments.
2032 in the Stub
The main action in the stub timeline takes place in 2032 in Clanton County, North Carolina. The Research Institute and other factions of 2100 meddle freely with Flynne, Burton, and Tommy's reality in 2032, influencing events by sending back money to build companies and hire assassins, as well as sharing military tech and medical cures from the future. The war ends sometime before 2032, and Burton and the other veterans suffer painful side effects from their haptic implants. The show's 2032 scenes show futuristic tech grafted onto a plausible near-future world.
2039 in the Unaltered Timeline
"Jackpot," The Peripheral season 1, episode 4, shows Wilf and Ash explain the apocalyptic "Jackpot" and its effect on humanity. The 22nd-century characters these events as part of their own history, so they take place in the unaltered timeline instead of the stub. A series of hacker attacks causes continent-wide power blackouts that last for months and destabilize civilization worldwide. Future historians call this the age of the "Cliff," when the Jackpot becomes irreversible.
2041 in the Unaltered Timeline
The Peripheral epiosde 4 also establishes that a pandemic sweeps the globe in 2041 and further destabilizes human society. The Blood Plague is a filovirus that causes viral hemorrhagic fever. It attacks the internal organs and causes internal bleeding until the abdomen bursts.
The 2040s-2080s in the Unaltered Timeline
Decades of disasters plague humanity in the mid-21st century. Wilf describes environmental catastrophes, droughts, famine, and antibiotic failure. Agricultural collapse and complete population collapse follow. The scene from The Peripheral season 1, episode 4, "Jackpot," is short on specifics. Still, Ash tells Flynne that over 7 billion people die in the unaltered timeline over four decades.
The 2080s in the Unaltered Timeline
Without giving a specific date, Ash tells Flynne in The Peripheral episode 4 that "the end" comes with a terrorist attack on a nuclear missile silo in Spring Creek, North Carolina. Flynne goes offline before Wilf and Ash tell her anything else, but their episode 4 presentation to Flynne heavily implies that more nuclear weapons get detonated. This seems to be the nadir of the calamities from which the characters of 2100 rebuild human civilization.
The 2080s-2090s in the Unaltered Timeline
An earlier scene in The Peripheral episode 4, "Jackpot," recaps what happens after the Jackpot and describes the realpolitik of 2100's status quo. Three leading institutions share power in the post-Jackpot world. Order is restored and maintained by the Kelpt oligarchy through extreme violence, and in return, society allows them to build wealth relatively free of regulations. London's Met Police curb the Klepts' overreaching, and the Research Institute develops the technology necessary for civilization to function. The human population is decimated, and "Wolf" and Aelita survive together as children on the streets until they're adopted as brother and sister.
The 2090s, One Year Before Aelita's Disappearance in the Unaltered Timeline
The Research Institute's experiments on stub timelines are in full swing. Aelita works there in the Grains and Legumes Department when Grace takes her to the God Font and explains the stub experiments to her. Aelita is horrified because the test subjects in the stub are real people, and she begins to formulate her plan to save Flynne's stub.
2099 in the Unaltered Timeline
Aelita is on the run in 2099, and Wilf works for Lev Zubov's Klept family. Aelita tells Wilf that she's trying to save a world, but not their own world. Aelita already has a peripheral that takes the form of her childhood self. Future London is draped in holograms to hide the devastation, simulate the decimated population, and reenact navy battles.
2100 in the Unaltered Timeline
Aside from the 2032 stub setting, most of The Peripheral's action takes place in London in 2100. The first six episodes don't show 2100's world beyond London. Aelita initiates with Flynne in 2100, and the Research Institute of 2100 puts out a hit on Flynne and Burton on the 2032 stub's dark web. When Burton, Conner, and Flynne travel to The Peripheral's future through the 22nd-century VR headsets, they inhabit the peripherals in 2100.
New episodes of The Peripheral stream Fridays on Amazon Prime Video.