Mechanical Maniacs - 15 year gap

Readers of the Mechanical Maniacs' epilogue series know there was a 15 year gap between the events of Series 6 and Series 7.  Most of this was laid out in Hadrian's story "Life after Life."  In short after the War the Mechs and all other Megaman Teams disband or go into hiding.  Wily and Cossack die and Light retires.  After this a new threat emerges and the Mechs reform.  General Cutman's ultimate defeat happens during this gap, but would be expanded on in the MM3 retelling as part of a story that involved time travel.  

Detailed Notes

Unofficial things (things not established in eps) in italics.  These are subject to change.

Background and Hadrian

• The last time Shadowman had faced General Cutman with the intent to kill him he had nearly won, but the General had managed to escape. Shortly after that, just before the war ended, the general helped defeat Mesmerman...but even that hadn't killed him. To rub it in he kept in contact with the team, seemingly to guide them. None of them were fooled and the Mechs kept on hunting the General.
  • The Mechs do not report their direct line to Cut to their bosses at this time. 
• Middleman acquired a means to harvest Evil Energy some years ago.  Evil Energy was scattered across the globe when Mesmerman's satellite was blown up.
• Cassandra never woke up from the coma she slipped into after the end of Cutman's war.
  • Hard (Hadrian) spent every cent he had trying to make sure the hospital kept her stable for as long as possible, but after five years he couldn't make any more payments and they pulled the plug without giving him a chance to say goodbye.
  • Cassandra's funeral was open casket and Dive makes a crude remark ("Eh, so what if she's dead? I'd bang 'er." ) with Hadrian sitting in the row immediately ahead.  A fight breaks out and the Cossacks hold a grudge afterwards.  The relationship between the Mechs and the other teams start to crumble.
• After this Hadrian becomes a drunk and goes into debt.  (Giving away most of his money to Artilleryman near the end of the War didn't help his financial state.)
• Shadowman makes Hadrian quit the team to appease the other teams (and probably because he was drinking) which was deemed a mistake almost immediately afterwards.
• After being fired Hadrian becomes a drunk again and disappears.  The Mechs try to find him to re-recruit him, but they don't manage to.
• Hadrian went into debt because of heavy drinking and was never able to rebuild his bar.  
• There was a scandal involving Skull, Centaur, and Toad that rocked the engineering world. Skull, Centaur, and Toad were all the same robot, basically. (a reference to real-life drama.)
  • Just shows the other teams crumbling in the background.
• Monsteropolis had changed. The Districts that the MPD had divided the city into at the onset of Cutman's war had remained, in spirit, until the city grew too big to manage alone.
• Then Mayor Landigarm made the divisions official, putting up walls between the Districts and making them into tiny city states of their own. Monsteropolis had gone from being a single, sprawling city into a combination of 46 Districts, each with its own utility girds, law-enforcement forces, Monitors and populations. Crime rates had dropped along with a staggering decrease in social and political unrest.
  • ​Afterwards Landigarm was assassinated.
    

General Cutman's Final Attack and The Mechs Disband

• At some point Chimeraman sets up shop in a remote Scissor Army base in the Rocky Mountains and begins to build a Scissor Army of his own as well as reconstructing the Ascendant Android's bodies and completing the General's version of Starman. It would be over a decade before he finishes. It's unknown if General Cutman was aware of this activity or if he cared.
• General Cutman contacts Dr. Cossack. Cossack and Cutman had cut a deal: he'd help General Cutman take down the Mechs in his bid to take over Monsteropolis as long as he left Russia out of his long term plans.
• General Cutman's contact with the Mechs was just a clever plan to keep them distracted while he hacked into Magnetman's personality program through months of specific keywords and images because of the open lines of communication.
  • Cutman made Magnet join a group of "old friends", robots modeled after versions of familiar faces form his own reality - the monstrous Slipstream Angels. Flashma'am and Quickma'am among them being especially painful for the 'Maniacs to fight. The Steel Devil being painful in a completely different way.
• Secretly, unknown to them all until it was too late, General Cutman had also stolen the Time Skimmer.
  • The General's plan, at this point, was to repair the Time Skimmer and use it to travel into the past to plant a virus within the Mechs right after Megaman beats Wily at the end of Megaman 3.  This virus would stay within the system of the Mechs and those who replaced the original members on the team.  The General then planned to return to a point after the War, when the Mechs were in an ideal place to stab everyone in the back so that the General could return and dominate the globe.
• The Mechs went after the General, against RPD orders. His nano-bot body of his made him impossible to hurt, let alone kill. They also faced Cossack's Comrades (because the General had made a deal with Cossack).
  • The RPD deemed the Maniacs outlaws and put a bounty on their heads. The other teams, already on bad terms with the Mechs, went after them.
  • Having to defend themselves against all of their former friends was just too much for Classi and she disappeared without a word. 

• Despite all this, the Mechs had managed to defeat the Slipstream Angels and recover Magnet.
• Magnet leaves following this ordeal.

• Dr. Wily tried using the situation to his advantage and General Cutman dismembered him and left his body in several places around Monsteropolis.  (You'll recall that the Wily of his universe tortured him and was a large factor in his hatred of humanity).
  • Naturally, Wily isn't actually dead.  He survived somehow, and is now in the background working on Zero.  However, absolutely none of his creations know he's alive in any sort of capacity.
  • At this point the Mechs' contact with General Cutman is known to the RPD. The RPD feels Wily's death is the Maniacs' fault because of the timing of the revelation.
• Someone keeps the General's return out of the public eye.
• Cossack uses his Comrades to attack the Mechs a lot, so the Mechs fight back and find out about Cossack's and the General's deal.  All the Comrades are wiped out, but Dive and Drill get away.
  • In the battle Cossack is killed when he steps into the path of Topman's Top Spin.  
• the exact nature of the General's survival dawned on the Mechs at this time. The General keeps backup bodies
• A practice some robots had made use of extensively during the war, the backup process involved a real time transmission of memories to all stored backup bodies. When the main body was destroyed the backup was activated. This provided a seamless transmission of memories and personality from one robot to the next.
• None of the Mechs were entirely comfortable with the practice and had managed to avoid using such devices themselves

• After figuring out the truth they knew that merely destroying one General Cutman meant absolutely nothing. There could be another...or thousands! All hidden throughout the world.  The Mechs come up with a plan, find Gen Cut's location and attack.
• General Cutman just let the Mechs just waltz into his base, seemingly to gloat.
  • Shadowman and Geminiman stay behind to stop the General while the rest of the Mechs make their escape. They have to set off the explosion while stopping his streaming backup to make sure no copies were made of him and while making sure he does not personally escape the explosion they would set off.  Everyone thinks both of them are dead.
• Despite this, the General was sitting in an unrecognizably modified Time Skimmer, so once the other Mechs left he was able to leave shortly before the explosion should have killed him.
  • The modifications to the time Skimmer would alter the memories of everyone in the area slightly, so the rest of the Mechs didn't remember the event consistently.
  • ​Unknown to everyone else Shadowman and Geminiman were rescued by Quint, who took them to the past to defeat the General. Which they did.

Afterwards

• With Wily dead Megaman retires and becomes Rock.
• Dr. Light also retires and starts to build X.
• Protoman dies of an energy imbalance.
• Bass is a world travelling hero, but isn't very public.  Nobody has a clear idea of where he is.
• Middleman begins his plans. Middleman considers himself a mere step away from my ascension to godhood; the unrealized potential.
• At some point Gag becomes a lieutenant in the MPD.
• At some point Gaderham assumes an even higher role in the RPD.  He is eventually considered a co-chief of police.
• Crorq is still universally in charge.
• The Sinister Six remain in the RPD and rise through the ranks, although they aren't seen too often.  Basically they fail upward.
• In Scissor Army begins to attack.
  • The attacks are small in scale and the RPD decided to cover it up to avoid mass panic.
  • This is the "seemingly insurmountable problem" hinted at at the end of "Life After Life."

Immediately prior to Series 7

• Needlegal takes the identity of Constance and works with Classi. as a vigilante.  (Reminder: both Classi and Needlegal are pure robots and so do not age physically.)
  • Magnetman assumed name of Nagi Kurasawa, a highly successful businessman.
  • This was a very effective cover in order to get closer to Middleman and others int he criminal underworld.  In actuality Kenta lived a humbler life off the grid.
  • As Nagi Kurasawa, Kenta had a reputation as a somewhat bad person, with some shady dealings the world over. 15 years later, Kenta was thin, but gave the impression of strength in a way only a well trained man can, and his eyes took in everything.
• Male pattern baldness had claimed Raijin (Snakeman).   In "Life After Life" he assumed the name Lucas Denozo, an infiltrations expert.
• At some point Raijin became an expert hacker.
• Quint deposits Shadowman and Geminiman about 14 years after the point he took them from. To everyone else it looks like they've died in the explosion that seemingly killed General Cutman. They spend their time tracking down their team and gathering the lost TM2 armour.
• They learn of Middleman and kept track of his movements.
• One night, after a particularly brutal beating at the hands of a bouncer, Hadrian decided to try to get my life back on track.
  • His black hair was starting to streak grey on the sides and his face held its share of wrinkles around the mouth and eyes, and no matter what he always seemed to appear unshaven.
  • Hadrian decided to get back into bounty hunting; a life I led in the Alternate Reality before he became Hardman.
  • He tried to trade on the Hardman name for a while, but reverted to his real name when it didn't get him anywhere.
  • Hadrian didn't get much work, but did well enough to pay for a small portion of my overhead. The rest was swallowed up by loan sharks and black market privateers who managed to really take advantage of my good nature.
• Middleman begins to create a memorial to the War out of the scraps of Mesmerman's Eden Satellite.
  • This memorial is impervious to damage.  It's made of advanced materials and emits it's own force field. 
  • Because it was made from the scraps of Mesmerman's Eden satellite it's full of Evil Energy; Mesmerman's essence.  It's construction is thanks to Mesmerman's influence on Middleman.  
  • The memorial's true purpose is to gather and store Evil Energy.
  • Mesmerman's plan is to use Middleman to gather enough Evil Energy to restore himself to life.  (Spoiler: he succeeds.)
  • A backup of Mesmer stored on the Eden satellite scraps miraculously managed to survive. However, pieces of it could be missing (not that that would matter to Mesmer).