[Music] You're inside something that came from my old pizzeria. Your breathing and your heartbeat are causing the springlocks to come loose. You don't want them to get too loose. Trust me. [Music] On the 18th of February, 2016, the following image was posted to Scott Cawthon's website, scottgames.com. Over the next 2 months, Scott would occasionally update his website and fill in the gaps to this teaser until, eventually, on the 23rd of April, Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location was finally announced. This was a big deal at the time as, up to this point, we'd been told that FNAF 4 was the final chapter and that the story of this franchise was officially over... Except, obviously it was not. Here was FNAF 5 and its title was pulled directly from one of the great unsolved mysteries at the time. "What mystery?" you might ask? Well, in FNAF 3 we were treated to Phone Guy tapes from years ago, recovered by Fazbear's Fright employees at the FNAF 1 location, along with the rotting corpse of William Aton springlocked in the back room. In these tapes, Phone Guy (or Ralph as we now know him) details the proper handling of springlock suits, of which that location had two. However, on night four, Ralph has an announcement to make: Here, Ralph refers to a previously unknown about "sister location". In the leadup to FNAF: Sister Location, we learned about a new entity known as "Circus Baby's Pizza World". Circus Baby's is owned by Fazbear Entertainment, making it a sister company to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, which we know due to Circus Baby's sharing intellectual property with Freddy's, such as its characters Freddy and Foxy, and thanks to the Survival Logbook, which roped in Baby's with other Fazbear brands. In the leadup to the game's release, we all wanted to know what made this sister location so special; Why have a whole game set here? Would we get to find out what the spring lock failure was? When exactly would this fall on the FNAF timeline? Ever since the game was released just over 8 years ago (Happy 8th anniversary Sister Location) the FNAF Community has been in shambles trying to answer these exact questions. It seems everyone has their own theories on when Sister Location is set, and today I'm here to throw my hat in the ring and try to answer these questions once and for all, while also providing a satisfying narrative explanation for them. [Music] [Ooh look! Is that Circus Baby hiding back there?] Sister location threw us all for a bit of a loop upon release. Despite the marketing seeming to point to this game taking place within the teased Circus Baby's Pizza World, it turned out that we were actually visiting Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rentals and that by the time of the game's story, Baby's Pizza World had been closed for years. Because of this, before we can answer when the game itself takes place we have to understand when the original restaurant was opened and closed so that we consider our evidence relative to that date. For the rest of the video it's important not to get these two locations confused, which is easy to do considering the very similar names. So, remember, Pizza World was the original restaurant with Circus Baby and the Funtimes which closed BEFORE the events of Sister Location, and Entertainment and Rentals is an underground facility opened AFTER the original restaurant shut down, and is where the game takes place. As I already mentioned, the term "sister location" was only ever used once prior in the series, in the FNAF 3 Night 4 training tape. Over the last 8 years, the FNAF Community has grappled with so much contradictory evidence and confusing plot lines that this original connection has become blurred and near-forgotten. Nowadays it's very rarely that I see Sister Location be related to THE Sister Location mentioned in FNAF 3. A lot of people seem to have picked up the belief that Fredbear's Family Diner is actually the aforementioned springlock failure location, and some even think that the FNAF 3 tapes are referring to the Bite of 83. Very quickly, I'd like to put that to debate to rest. In FNAF 3, we're told that springlocks are "specially designed suits that double as both animatronic and suit". Springlocks, when changed from animatronic to suit mode, "recoil and compress the animatronic parts around the sides of the suit". On the following night, we're informed not to "touch the spring lock at any time. Do not breathe on the springlocks, as moisture may loosen them, and cause them to break loose." It's pretty evident that springlocks can only fail if they are in suit mode, as that is when they are compressed. In animatronic mode, springlocks are already extended and thus can't fail. Therefore, considering Fredbear was in animatronic mode during the Bite of 83, there is literally no way that THIS can be considered a springlock failure. Anyway, tangent about Fredbear's aside, I really am surprised at how many people seem to overlook Circus Baby's being THE sister location. Thanks to my own background as a storyteller/writer I always try to view the series' lore through the eyes of Scott Cawthon; as a man trying to create a story, rather than a puzzle maker revealing truths about a perfectly crafted timeline. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Circus Baby's is THE sister location because... why else would the game be called that? Now, it is fair to say that the title is a play on words, as Elizabeth Afton, who haunts the main antagonist, is our protagonist, Eggs Benedict's sister... but that doesn't mean the title can't have two meanings. It's a double entendre. But the title isn't the only evidence. Far from it. On night four of Sister Location, we awaken inside some sort of mascot costume in a dark room. Circus Baby begins to speak to us and tells us the following: The suit we're inside of is, in fact, a springlock suit. Baby warns us that if we don't keep the spring locks wound, something very bad will happen. The main contention from this entire night comes from the following line referring to the suit: This line is both super explicit and very confusing. it's a little poorly worded but it is trying to communicate something very simple... We are currently inside the springlock suit which caused the rest of them to be retired. Now, immediately I know there will be a lot of people itching to contradict me in the comments but let me explain. The reason this line confuses people so much is due to Baby saying that the suit was "never used", followed by her saying it was "too dangerous". This would seem to imply that the suit was never used at all because it was deemed too dangerous before there was a chance to, which makes us think of FNAF 3's training tape saying that the springlocks were retired. However, I'm going to break down this line bit by bit and tell you why that's NOT what Baby is saying. [CIRCUS BABY]: "I don't think it was ever used..." [EXPLANATION]: This suit, to my knowledge, was never operated publicly. [CIRCUS BABY]: "At least, not the way it was meant to be used." [EXPLANATION]: Someone tried to use it as intended but something went wrong and there was a springlock failure. [CIRCUS BABY]: "Too dangerous." [EXPLANATION]: Once the springlocks failed, it was deemed too dangerous to ever be used again and thus was never "used" the way it was "meant" to be. If Baby meant to say that the spring locks were retired before her Pizzeria opened, one would have to answer why a new springlock suit was created for her Pizzeria at all. This suit is very clearly designed to be in line with the rest of the Funtime animatronics; it has the segmented face plates and all. And, despite a few recent theories suggesting that this might just be another spring lock in storage at Circus Baby's, I don't think this is the case. The suit does not line up visually with any other springlock we've ever seen and is almost certainly an original design for this new restaurant. We should also consider that Baby is very much aware of what will happen to somebody who is spring locked which would imply she's witnessed or at least been made aware of a springlock failure. And, if these suits were retired before her restaurant ever opened then how would she know any of that? Now, some of you might ask why Scott would word this part in that way? But I would ask... why in God's name would there be an entire night dedicated to a springlock suit with implied lethal history in a game named after the only reference to a sister location in the entire series which comes from a tape about springlock failures?!! [sigh] This is what I mean when I say we need to start considering FNAF as a story rather than a perfect "puzzle" assembled from completely factual and logical information alone. Scott made a game set around the sister location and put a springlock suit in it to answer a lingering question we had from FNAF 3. Okay so Sister Location is THE sister location... some of you are pounding your head against a wall at how obvious that sounds. I know so was I. But what does that tell us about the timeline? Well, in those same FNAF 3 tapes we also learned that after the springlocks are retired the Missing Children's Incident occurs. This means that Circus Baby's Pizza World had to exist in some form at the latest in June 1985... right before the MCI. (Thank you to everyone who pointed out that I said July in my last video...) Now, there is a line from Hand Unit which people are going to point out to disprove this but I'll discuss that line in the following chapter. Baby and the Funtimes existing before the MCI is not going to be a popular opinion however I think I have a satisfying narrative which fits with this evidence-based conclusion and you'll see me talk about that at the end. But if you're still not convinced that Circus Baby's is open Pre-MCI, I'd like to point your attention to the game's opening cutscene... Mr Afton. Now, if we are to believe that William is operating under a pseudonym during FNAF 2 and masquerading as a night guard, and potentially as a technician in The Week Before, then it's safe to assume that as early as 1987 William wouldn't have been operating as a public figure, presumably due to his linking with the MCI. And if that's the case then something tells me that William wouldn't have been opening many children's restaurants after having been tied to the disappearance of nearly half a dozen kids! So now that we have our basis for when Circus Baby's Pizza World closed, when does its follow-up Entertainment and Rentals open? [Music] [Looks like Ennard's not happy to be in the video...] Earlier, I mentioned a line which people use as evidence to say that Circus Baby's Pizza World couldn't have been opened pre-Freddy's-closing. That line comes from the very first night of Sister Location, where our helpful AI guide, Hand Unit, says this: At first, this might seem like pretty good counter-evidence to what I suggested in the previous chapter, but if we keep listening, we learn that this line is actually not about Circus Baby's Pizza World at all... Hand Unit here is referring to Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rentals the successor to Pizza World. So this raises the question: when did Entertainment and Rentals open? We have three main closures of Freddy's as far as we're currently aware: 1. The original Prime Freddy's which opened in 1983 and closed sometime after the MCI in 1985 but before 1987. 2. The second "New and Improved" Freddy's which opened in 1987 and closed 2 weeks later after The Bite of 87 and 3. the final Freddy's which opened in 1989 (go watch my Week Before theory to see where I got that date) and presumably closed by that year's end, as told to us by the newspaper clippings in FNAF 1. Now, Hand Unit says that Freddy's was a "massive success" before it closed, which sort of eliminates that third option. We know from The Week Before that the FNAF 1 location is far from a success though we should keep in mind that, as a spokesperson for Fazbear Entertainment, Hand Unit could be using marketing speak to describe Freddy's in a better light than is accurate. However, we can look to the Scott Games website teasers for more information on when exactly Circus Baby's was reimagined as a rental service. One of Scott's website teasers leading up to the game tells us that the original Circus Baby's Pizza world was only in operation for one day, which is confirmed by Baby in-game. After Elizabeth Afton is killed by Circus Baby, the restaurant is shut down with the publicly stated reason being due to "gas leaks". This seems like an obvious cover-up of what really happened and most people in the FNAF Community know about this teaser. However what I never see brought up is the following quote which comes from the source code of that very same teaser... This seems to be the comment the news story was looking for from our local entrepreneur, who we know to be William Afton. This tells us that plans for the Entertainment and Rental's service were already in motion pretty soon after the incident that caused Pizza World to be shut down. With that in mind, I would imagine that the unfortunate closure Hand Unit references, is, in fact, the shutdown of Freddy's post-MCI in 1985. Some further evidence for this would be the inclusion of the character Funtime Foxy in the 1987 location. In FNAF 2, we were first introduced to a broken up pink and white version of Foxy seemingly introduced alongside the other toy animatronics in that location named by staff as The Mangle due to how it was torn worn apart and put back together by kids. However, if we pay close attention to what Ralph tells us about The Mangle it seems that they may predate the location itself. Since the FNAF 2 location was only open for a week by the time that we work there, it would seem a little soon for the staff to just give up and leave Foxy as he was, right? And, in my opinion, it's a bit redundant to say that Foxy was redesigned to be kid-friendly when that's the entire reason for the Toys' redesigns. We even know for a fact that Foxy isn't a toy ever since FNAF World. In FNAF world the unmangled Foxy is called... Funtime Foxy. Not Toy Foxy, which never made any sense to me as a kid... at least not until Sister Location when we found out that Funtime animatronics are a sub-brand which featured in Circus Baby's. In Help Wanted we even see that as early as 1983 there were Funtime Foxy masks which existed alongside the core 4 and balloon boy. Now, I'm not suggesting that Funtime Foxy in Sister Location is the same physical animatronic as Mangle, only that they share the same name in Fazbear branding, perhaps as some sort of cross-promotion between Freddy's and Circus Baby's. Okay, so now we know that Pizza World opened sometime in the early 80s most likely around the time that the Fazbear Entertainment company was expanding and still utilizing springlocks. Elizabeth Aton gets scooped up by Baby. Pizza World shuts down. Then the Missing Children's Incident occurs at the original Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Soon thereafter, the original Freddy's closes, but not before being "left to rot for quite a while" as told to us by Phone Guy in FNAF 2. Circus Baby's Entertainment and Rentals is opened as planned, most likely sometime in 1986, and stays in operation for many years to come... But that still doesn't tell us when we, as Michael Afton, go to the bunker and play through the events of Sister Location. I do have an answer for this but just quickly before that, let me debunk when some others have suggested the game takes place. [Music] [He's got Ennard inside of him dawg] At the end of sister location Baby and her band merge into a singular entity known as Ennard, sharing one body between them, and trick our protagonist, Michael, into entering the Scooping Room. Baby explains that, while they've tried to escape before, they're always caught because they look like this... [CIRCUS BABY]: "But if we looked like you..." They proceed to relieve Mike of his internal organs and wear his body as a skin suit which slowly decays over the course of what we can assume to be a week. Eventually Michael becomes too haunting in appearance to be of any use to them and thus they leave his crumpled body on the side of the road and escape into the sewers... And then Michael gets up. Okay so exactly how this works is unclear but Michael somehow survives this experience... Most likely due to Remnant. Remnant, if you're unaware, is a liquid metal "soul juice" which appears to have healing properties as used by various characters in the books. (This franchise is so weird.) Anyway, since the game came out people have used the fact that Michael is a walking corpse to explain why in FNAF 1 he's fired for odor on night 7. Fritz Smith is fired for the same reason in FNAF 2 which people then use as evidence to say that Mike is also Fritz now I'm not saying one way or another if Mike is Fritz but the odor thing while interesting is pretty weak evidence to conclude that Sister Location is set before FNAF 2. First of all, we're told in Help Wanted: This, to me, sounds like a pretty overt reference to something as silly as "odor" being a reason for firing somebody. Especially considering they're a night guard who never interacts with anyone else in the company. That's right! Neither Mike, nor Fritz, nor whoever works for Fazbear ever interacts with another soul while on the night shift. Ralph even confirms as much in The Week Before. This odor reason is still most likely what it was when the first game came out; a way to troll people who beat the hardest night of the game. "Ah nice one. You beat the game. Think you're cool? Well you're fired. And you stink." (Sorry Scott) Anyway, considering that's really the only evidence I've seen for Sister Location taking place pre- FNAF 2 and it makes very little sense to suggest that Scrap Baby and Molten Freddy were wandering around for 30 years between Sister Location and Pizzeria Simulator... when DO I think Sister Location takes place? To answer that, we need to determine what exactly the Funtime animatronics are all about. [He's got the MCI inside of hi-- wait... Pause.] Those of you you who are very familiar with the franchise are most likely aware of the Molten MCI Theory, but you may not be aware of how much evidence has mounted over the years since it was first proposed so I'm going to break it all down here. In Sister Location we're introduced to four new animatronics. These animatronics are by far the most aggressive and unpredictable of any we've seen up to this point in the series; constantly breaking down attempting to escape, and implied to have injured or killed multiple employees over the years. When the game released it wasn't clear how exactly these characters fit into the story. We found in secret blueprints hidden in the game that these Funtimes had some... questionable features built into them. It became pretty obvious that these robots had ulterior motives behind their designs, and, considering our child killing maniac, William Afton, is the one who built them... it's clear what his intentions were when opening Circus Baby's Pizza World. At the time, this got people thinking that the Funtimes were indeed possessed, but by a fresh set of kids killed by the shiny metal monstrosities themselves while rented out to kids' birthday parties. However, the sequel to the game, Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator, seemed to suggest something different. As mentioned, at the end of Sister Location, Ennard uses Michael as a skin suit to escape the facility and eventually discards his rotten corpse shell to escape into the sewers. Sometime after this, thanks to a conversation which occurred through source code teasers across Scott's two websites, we know that Baby's band got sick of Elizabeth bossing them around, and booted her from the amalgamation. The next time we see them in Pizzeria simulator Enard has rebranded into Molten Freddy and from what we learned in that game these souls may not be as unfamiliar to us as we first thought. Throughout Pizzeria Simulator, we can listen to stories from Candy Cadet, a purchasable animatronic storyteller, all of which share a theme of five things becoming one. In the insanity ending of the game, Henry, William Afton's old business partner, says this: [HENRY]: He lured them all back. Back to a familiar place. Back with familiar tricks. He led them there. Again. He overpowered them. Again. And he robbed them of the only thing that they had. Again. Again. Again. Again. In Help Wanted's Ennard Repair level, there are four original endoskeletons from the FNAF 1 animatronics stuffed together in a furnace seemingly being melted down to harvest Remnant. The blueprints from Pizza Sim also tell us that the scooper from Sister Location is a "Remnant Injector" meaning that William was most likely using it to transfer Remnant from the melted down animatronics to the Funtimes. This all came as a bit of a surprise to the community at the time as we were under the impression that FNAF 3's good ending, wherein we set free the five original souls, was the Canon version of events. However, within the last couple of months I've seen a few YouTube theorists put forward a really interesting interpretation of Molten Freddy based on his design. In FNAF 3, if we fail to complete the happiest day mini-games and achieve the good ending we're met with the bad ending, wherein the masks of the original five animatronics have lights on inside of their masks, specifically each of them in their left eye sockets. [Oh boy, here we go.] Quick side note: No. Golden Freddy does NOT have two eyelights. It's ONE which is reflecting against the back of the Mask made brighter so that the mask can be seen in the dark. You can even see the single light source glow in the left eye, same as all the rest. Anyway, Molton Freddy's design calls back to this by only having one eye lit up, the same as in the FNAF 3 bad ending. Molten Freddy IS the bad ending of FNAF 3. Further evidence for MoltenMCI comes from the Silver Eyes trilogy of books that, while they are not canon, have certain characters and plot points which are direct parallels to the games. In the third book of the series, The Fourth Closet, William Aton melts down the original animatronics into a singular Now, that sounds a hell of a lot like Molton Freddy. A mass of molten wires with no defined mechanisms but moving of its own free will. So, if the Funtimes are indeed injected with the melted down remnant of the original four Freddy's animatronics, when exactly did this happen? Well it has to be after FNAF 1. Up until that point, the children's spirits are still clearly possessing the animatronics the only time we see the FNAF one animatronics post that game is in FNAF 3's end of night mini games where good old will a breaks into the FNAF 1 location and disassembles Freddy and the Gang only to get springlocked. What I and many other theorists suggest is that in between these mini gamess William takes the costumeless endo skeletons back to Circus Baby's, potentially through tunnels connecting FNAF 1 to the bunker... (Check out this video, it's really interesting.) [Her username is actually spelled CandiBuunny. Sorry, Candi.] ...and then melts them down. Injecting their remnant into the Funtimes. Some people argue that this miname takes place before FNAF 2 as well as the minigame sprites have buttons like the withereds but Scott's never been exactly consistent with his miname sprites. Now it's important to note that this doesn't mean the Funtimes couldn't be built until after this point as we know that Remnant can be added to a robot after its initial creation. In The Fourth Closet, William literally does so to none other than Funtime Freddy with a remnant infused syringe. Okay so is there anything else to narrow down Sister Location's timeline placement? Well, yes, actually. At the end of the game, Michael speaks to his father in a seemingly non-diagetic monologue and he says that his father was the one who sent him here. He also says that now his sister and the others are free that there is only one thing left to do... We're then shown an image of the burnt-down Fazbear's Fright location post-FNAF 3, and while this can be a bit more open to interpretation I think there's a clear winner in terms of what Scott was intending by pairing these lines with these visuals. Michael says that he's going to come find his father meaning that William is missing and seemingly has been for some time. We know that the two reunite in FNAF 3 resulting in what we see in this very cutscene. I think we're hearing Mike set up his intentions for FNAF 3 and that Scott is showing us springtrap survived after FNAF 3, leading us neatly into Pizzeria Simulator. So, considering all the evidence I've laid out while we don't have a definitive year exactly to lock down Sister Location on the timeline we know that it takes place after FNAF 1 and before FNAF 3 with the Pizzeria Simulator occurring sometime soon after that. But wait, you're probably wondering right now: why would William Afton invent his murder robots in 1985 before the MCI? Surely it makes more sense for him to step up his methods of killing one after the other rather than going backwards, right? Well, you see, to use the books as evidence again (something I know people will be mad about), William states the following directly explaining why he commits the MCI in that universe... Baby killing William's daughter was an accident but what he learned from that tragedy inspired an obsession in him that would lead him to do horrible things. So, while this next part might be teetering on the edge of fanfiction territory, I would like to propose my interpretation of the early parts of the FNAF story, given what Sister Location tells us about its timeline placement. [It's been so long Since last I seen my son Lost to this monster...] Sometime in the 1970s William Afton and Henry Emily open Fredbear's Family Diner, an animatronic- centric eatery aimed at child-friendly fun. The business grows and grows until it is eventually folded into Fazbear Entertainment's media conglomerate. The main stars of the show, Fredbear and Spring Bonnie, are the latest innovations in animatronic technology: springlock suits that can double as both animatronic performers and wearable costumes, to maintain authenticity between performances. William is an unstable man; brilliant in his engineering ability, but always feeling second best to his co-owner and business partner. His feelings toward Henry range from wild jealousy to near worship and he is always trying to one-up or impress him. William's obsession with his work leaves his three children, Michael, David, and Elizabeth, without a parent in the house to take care of them so they stay in or are forced to go to work with their father around the corner from their home. Michael bullies his little brother horrendously until one day he accidentally takes it too far, and while playing a practical joke on his brother, gets him killed. David's head is crushed by the jaws of the animatronic that William's best friend and greatest rival created. William slowly goes mad, sure that he will have revenge on Henry. In the wake of David's death, Fredbear's is rebranded, pushing the classic characters into the background while bolstering the new Freddy's gang that had come from Fazbear's popular cartoon series. Henry also designs a Security Puppet to keep an eye on his daughter to make sure she is safe. William hates that puppet. If it had been there when Michael and his friends had done what they did to David then maybe... Another one of Henry's creations. Another one William would prove could fail. William places a heavy box at top the security puppet's resting place and wait for Charlie to be pushed outside as she always was by the wicked children who went to Freddy's, William seizes his opportunityn desperate to prove that Henry is no better than him. His family would be no less broken than his. He kills Charlie and leaves her in the alley, speeding away in his car. However. the Security Puppet finds its way outside and collapses on Charlie's body; broken by the rain but given new life by Charlie's ebbing spirit. Over the next few months, employees, including William, notice that the Puppet is acting differently. [PHONE GUY]: I never like that puppet thing. it's always thinking and it can go anywhere. Purple tear tracks have also appeared on its mask. William realizes that something has happened to the Puppet that he can't explain. He needs to know more. He needs proof. William starts work on his own restaurant, his relationship with Henry having deteriorated beyond repair. He designs robots to capture children left abandoned by their families. It'll be the perfect crime. Nobody will suspect him. The parents will be too distracted by his perfect machines to keep track of their children. Once he has them, he can experiment on them and recreate what he did to Charlie. In the leadup to Freddy's Sister Location's openingm during training an employee is springlocked and killed leading to the springlock suits being retired across Fazbear franchises. No matter, the show must go on. Circus Baby's opens for one day... a test with kids from the locality to see how things are working. And then... William Falls victim to his own design. Elizabeth is killed by Circus Baby and she too undergo a transformation like the Puppet's tear tracks. Baby's Eyes turn from blue to green, altering to match his late daughter's. William has done it. He's proven that this possession is real. But it's too late for his Funtimes. Circus Baby's Pizza World is shuttered, and the animatronics are moved to Fazbear's bunker. The designs which raised red flags in the board meetings are being discussed again. But he needs more. More more proof. <ore material to work with. Circus Baby's closed too soon, and his daughter's soul won't be enough. All this time, as William's little experiment has risen and failed, Henry's Freddy Fazbear's Pizza has been thriving. Despite his efforts to destroy Henry's life, Charlie's death was covered up. William won't fail again. William goes to Freddy's and uses his old-reliable springlock suit sitting useless in the back room to lure and murder five more children, stuffing the suits of Henry's creation with their bodies. William's experiment proves a success, and in the process, he's destroyed the reputation of Freddy's forever... [Wahoo!] So there you have it. My suggested timeline for the early days of William's mistakes and murders based on all the evidence given to us by Sister Location and the surrounding games. If you enjoyed this video please subscribe for more upcoming FNAF theories and if you haven't already go check out my first video on the FNAF timeline pinning down exactly when FNAF 1 takes place thanks to what we learned from The Week Before. I was absolutely amazed by the momentous support you've all shown that first video even from those of you who didn't necessarily agree with my conclusion. I'm really excited to make more FNAF theories and I hope you'll join me in the future to help piece together the story of this franchise which we've all come to love over the last 10 years. Thank you very much for watching. Goodbye! [What are you still doing here? The video's over.]