Man from U.N.C.L.E. Section VII

Thank you for that very kind shout out. :D

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You've done a good job keeping it all pretty straight, at least for your story lines. I've gone back and revised a few thing periodically, including the parents' story. That ended up being the one I wrote for the Christmas Picfic two years ago.

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lindafishes8.livejournal.com

Be new to writing, my timeline is still being worked out. It will be interesting to see what experienced writers answer this post. IK accomplished so much prior to being 'given' to UNCLE. It's hard to keep it all straight!

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Very hard to keep it all straight, good luck with yours ;)

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jantojones.livejournal.com

I haven't got a proper time line worked out yet as I'm still fairly early in my writings. I know, however that it is going to get complicated. If I remember correctly, Illya stated he graduated survival school in '56. So if he assume he's about 30 in '64, that would mean he graduated when he was 22.

That wouldn't leave a great deal of time before that to have Navy and KGB careers.

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Sounds like you have your timeline worked out well enough.

Have you ever seen this? http://www.pjfarmer.com/woldnewton/UNCLE.htm

It's a timeline based on many fan works, and is rather interesting. I don't exactly follow it in my timeline, though like you I have IK working for Soviet Military Intelligence (given he was in the Navy) rather than working for the KGB... in my AU stories. Illya has a half-brother in KGB, as well as his mentor in GRU who was disgraced by an action of Illya in his early days at the Sorbonne. That mentor eventually crossed over to KGB.

Illya was at the Sorbonne at the age of 18...so I have him a little younger as on operative.

In my stories was recruited by Waverly after being offered up to UNCLE by the Directorate. He was 3 years in England before coming to NYC...but since he was an experienced agent Waverly pushed off Illya's Survival School training until his tenure in the UK was at an end. Under the tutelage of Harry Beldon...Illya got his 'sea legs' with UNCLE>

Given he was experienced, that's why he was asked to stay a month more at Survival School to teach his class in demolitions etc.

We all have our variations on the theme, getting IK to New York in the early 60's to coincide with the years of the show.

Edited Date: 2014-09-21 03:10 pm (UTC)

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franciskerst.livejournal.com

Seems logical to me.

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lindafishes8.livejournal.com

There's a ton of info in that link.It includes the paperbacks. I didn't consider those.

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I seem to remember asking someone about the date, which must be why I had him graduating at 22. Still, later on we have the business with getting a doctorate (which must have been a correspondence course ;)

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You don't get a PhD by study and exam, you have to do original research. Quantum physics fortunately just needs thinking and paper, so he could have done it between missions.

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So he could have been employed by UNCLE by then, still in Europe and able to work on that PhD while out and about on UNCLE business.
That certainly makes it easier to fit things together.

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That's what I thought. If he had been doing lab based research it wouldn't have been possible.

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I don't write but I did once work out a timeline that works for me.

Illya's first degree is in maths, taken early as you can easily do in maths. cf. Ruth Lawrence.
Then he does his national service in the navy, aged 18 - 21, attached to GRU, military intelligence.
Followed by 2 years at the Sorbonne, getting a masters in mathematical physics
From the Sorbonne he is sent to Cambridge for his PhD, still attached to soviet intelligence. This is with the long term aim of getting him into an American university to recruit spies working in the nuclear progamme.
But it's while he's still working on his PhD that he is transferred to Uncle. He goes through Suvival School while taking a break from Cambridge, but Uncle supports him finishing his PhD as he also serves as an agent in Europe.
He moves to NY after completing his thesis.

And I don't see him working in the labs at all.

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avery11.livejournal.com

This is similar to the timeline I use. It makes sense, but it does feel a bit compressed at the same time--to me at least. I try not to make Illya too superhuman, and the speed with which he breezes through all his achievements leaves me feeling rather breathless.

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I agree there's too much activity to fit in for his age, that's why I give him an early maths first degree. As long as the ability is recognised early a first degree at 17 is possible without accelerating any other fields. Then by leaving completing his postgrad degree after joining Uncle I gain an extra couple of years or so to fit everything in.

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avery11.livejournal.com

I agree it's about the best we can do under the circumstances. We have to make the best use of the information we've been given. Still, it does get awkward at times.

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That's similar to my timeline except I have him finish his Phd just before joining UNCLE. I see him fast tracked through his educational program...given he has his eidetic memory.

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Where do we have that little tidbit, about his memory? I can't recall... since mine is decidedly not eidetic.

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Wiki...which I think Cindy wrote...not sure.

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Yeah the labs are a problem. There's no indication that he ever spent any time whatsoever in a lab at UNCLE, at least none that I can remember. It's just something that seems liable to have happen given the revelation of his degree.
Going to Cambridge while in the employ of UNCLE seems like a very reasonable scenario.

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avery11.livejournal.com

I struggle over the timeline all the time, because the original writers kind of boxed everything into a small time frame.

Illya is supposed to have graduated Survival School in 1956. Before that, he was in the GRU/KGB, attended the Sorbonne and Cambridge for post-grad work, and spent time in the Soviet military on a submarine. All this before 1963 or 1964! We'd also have to fit in some undergrad work somewhere. Try as I might, I can't make all that fit into the "official" timeline.

DMC was 30-31 in 1964, so that would put Illya in Survival School at 22-23. I suppose he could have started undergrad/postgrad work early, and finished both before attending Survival School. He was awfully bright for his age :D The problem is, when did he have time to enter the Soviet Navy, or the GRU/KGB? I can't really see him doing either of these after attending UNCLE Survival School.

I really don't have a satisfying answer to this quandary.

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And is the gymnastics training for the Olympics canon? Where the heck do we fit that!

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That was in his University days before Sorbonne, given his age that was conceivable. II think the Olympics might have been a little cover story... or maybe not. Once never knows when he's telling the truth. lol.

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That comes up in the one with Sony and Cher, oddly enough, after he does a gymnastic worthy turn on a dress rack.

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I don't see him finishing his tour of duty on board a submarine...in my timeline he was pulled from active military duty, to his intelligence duties and after that sent to the Sorbonne to work on his masters degree but also to spy on people at the university.

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I have him doing double duty as a student/spy as well, but is there anything in canon that puts him as part of an intelligence agency within the USSR? I don't recall it being in the series.

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Nothing that had him in intelligence or secret police...that's all fanon.

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We almost have to assume that he was in the military and at school simultaneously. i suppose if he is indeed part of an intelligence group, then the school could work as a cover while still in active duty.
I think.

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That's what I had him doing in my stories....working to finish his degrees at Sorbonne and Cambridge and spying at the same time.

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st-crispins.livejournal.com

I definitely keep a time line or I wouldn't be able to keep it straight. Though, I admit, I've sometimes scheduled certain events and regretted their placement later.

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I know what you mean about regrets. I really have gone back to a few stories to make them line up with what i wrote later on. Generally my first works were just that zealous one shot with no sense of ending up with a true collection of stories that somehow relate to one another.
Funny how we take so much time and effort to do this right.

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carabele.livejournal.com

I have created a timeline that I definitely keep to for my MFU stories.

The one exception was the first story I ever wrote for MFU, THE WAVES OF CHANGE AFFAIR. And in that story it wasn't that I didn't keep to the past timeline, but more that I used the scenario from THE FIFTEEN YEARS LATER AFFAIR that I since made the decision to purposely ignore.

I have to admit that sometimes inconsistencies in timeline in one author's body of work often bother me as those can seem glaring if you read various stories close together that vary the timeline.

Edited Date: 2014-09-22 04:02 am (UTC)

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