Okay. There's a LOT of Forte.

If you're new to the Forte Universe, I won't go into full detail of the history of the Seattle hero team called Forte, as that's covered on other pages on these sites (the most comprehensive probably being the one on the Forge page). The short version is that Forte began as a Champions role-playing game in November of 1987. The fantastical adventures of this group of extraordinary characters began in that form, and continued that way for eight years, until the game finally had to end in 1995. During that time, 328 "runs" of the game (or "issues", as Champions is meant to simulate comic books) were recorded in write-ups called "game updates" that chronicled the lives (and sometimes deaths) of the twenty-six heroes that were members of the team throughout its long run. During that time, fiction was also written about the characters, and other creative storytelling methods as well.

None of that, I'm afraid, is here.

Yet.

But not too many years after the campaign officially ended, Forte came back to life in a new online form. The sites that comprise the ForteUniverse circle began to spring up, designed to contain and present all-new Forte stories. Forte went from living fiction to written fiction, and the world of Forte continued to expand and grow into exciting new directions, bringing classic characters back into the spotlight and introducing new characters created by the former Forte players.

So the timeline of Forte has never really stopped, and has been rolling along for twenty years now (a fact that makes most of us involved cringe and feel like taking a nap...). The "Forte 2000" site that introduced the all-new Forte team (and eight new heroes to the Forte roster that took up the legacy built by the old) started a new direction, but built on what had come before. The "old" Forte was never forgotten, and former heroes, villains, storylines and supporting characters returned. While many tales were written for these new characters (often guest-starring the old), stories also began to be written about the classic characters, catching us up on what they've been up to, and even, in the case of the "Forge" site, grouping a few of them into a new Forte spinoff team and back into the action.

But the stories written on all these sites tend to jump around a bit. They weren't written in chronological order. A writer would write a tale set in Forte's 2002, and then jump back to an early story in 2000. Or jump ahead to 2005. What we're doing along the way is expanding and filling in the Forte timeline. Continuity is a huge consideration, and great effort is taken to research what's already happened before taking on a new tale...and making sure it doesn't contradict either something that's already established or something that's planned for down the road. The core Forte writers have MOST of the big picture figured out. But there's enough space left in there to have some fun and introduce events we might not have seen.

Which can all get a little confusing if you're a regular Forte reader and trying to figure out where in the continuity a new story is, remember that context it's set in, what happened just before it, etc. So this page was designed to list all the ForteUniverse stories, from the various sites, in chronological order. This is for ease of reading for those just jumping in, but also to help regular readers take a quick peek and remember where things were in the ForteVerse when this new backstory tale suddenly pops up. It provides a little map to help readers find their way.

A few notes. First, you might notice that certain pieces of fiction have just titles, but others are referred to by "issue number". The numbered "issues" (and a couple of other tales) are written in the "update format". They're not regular prose, but are written in a present-tense sort of summary style. This is the style that the weekly game updates were written in back during the Forte game, and such things as the Forte 2000 issues are written to emulate that, or, in other words, read like these fictional "runs" had actually happened in a live game. Just a little fun experience for former Forte players, and hopefully something you'll enjoy as well once you get used to it.

Also, when it comes to Forte 2000, you'll notice the issues jump from #3 right to #140. No, you're not missing links. None of the issues between have been written. The origin story of the team (Forte 2000 #'s 1-3) was written, and the "comic" then jumps ahead a couple of years and picks up there. As for the details of what happened between, a lot of that can be found in the actual fiction from the Forte 2000 site that takes place between those issues. And some has yet to be written. It's all very fluid. So, again, hopefully this chronology will help smooth this out. Rest assured, if a story has been put up on any of the Forte sites, it will be in the chronology on this page.

As for the other, earlier material? The huge store of Forte history between 1987 and 1998 (where currently the online continuity begins)? It is my little dream to get it all online someday and share that whole amazing epic with the web-browsing, super-hero-loving world. However, it's a BIG TASK. Over three hundred issues have to be scanned as text (there aren't any handy Word files of most of those, as PCs weren't QUITE as abundant back then), formatted for the web, and uploaded. The same goes for old Forte fiction that was written along the way, some of which is really great. We're (very) slowly but surely moving toward that eventual goal, but for now, what you'll find on these sites deals mainly with the past ten years of the team. But in the reading of those tales, you'll get pieces and hints of the rich history that gave birth to all of this, and I hope it intrigues you enough to stick around and wait until it arrives for your exploration.

But, in the meantime, there are many new and exciting stories--some action-packed, some small and personal, some tragic, some quite funny--that you can find here from the Forte world, and I hope, if you haven't yet, that you'll start browsing through them and MAYBE enjoy reading them as much as we enjoy writing them. And be sure to check out all the sites these tales come from, as there's plenty of fantastic hero art and other goodies to be found in them.

So start at the top of the list, or jump in in the middle if that's your fancy. Either way, we guarantee you a hell of a ride. And if you feel like telling us what you think, feel free to drop as a line at forte@forteuniverse.com. We'd love to hear from you.

And the story continues...

Michael O'Connell
ForteUniverse Webmaster

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