Dark timeline explained - Chronological order of the entire series

Time travel fiction doesn't usually make things easy for the audience, but Dark makes complexity a higher art form. Over three seasons, the show explores concepts of fate, identity, and recursion through a meticulously constructed framework of timelines and realities. Getting it takes going outside the conventional narrative sense and conceiving of time as not a linear experience, but more of a loop where beginnings and endings blur.

This article presents a historical timeline of events in Dark, following the internal chronology of the series and not that of events uncovered from the actual cause of the rift to the conclusion that ends the cycle. Every portion is placed in the rightful order of cause and effect, based only on confirmed series occurrences.

Here's the official trailer for your reference:

1. The origin world and the actual beginning of Dark

The Dark timeline begins in the Origin World, which is a universe separate from the two that the show spends most of its time exploring. In this world, H.G. Tannhaus, a clockmaker, loses his son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter in a car accident. Grieving, he attempts to construct a time machine to bring them back. His own experiment, though, inadvertently creates a rift in the fabric of reality, splitting up time into two intertwined but parallel worlds: Martha's world and Jonas's world.

This is the actual start of all that follows. Interestingly enough, Tannhaus never appears in the rest of the tale as a traveler, but what he does in the Origin World makes the loop in both timelines feasible.

2. 1800s: Jonas and the establishment of Sic Mundus

Having failed to stop the apocalypse in 2020, Jonas finds himself stranded in 1888 with Magnus, Bartosz, and Franziska. With limited technology, they begin working on stabilizing the God Particle to travel through time again. Their group goes on to create Sic Mundus, or The Travelers, a secret society committed to ruling — or destroying — the cycle.

At this point, Jonas is gradually becoming Adam, the broken, older version of himself, who believes the only way to end the loop is to destroy its origin, unaware that his actions contribute to sustaining it.

3. Early 20th century: Noah, Charlotte, and the cycle

As more people follow Sic Mundus, Noah is recruited by Adam and indoctrinated into the belief that breaking the cycle will save everyone. He is all along unwittingly manipulated to achieve the very loop that he is trying to end. The most paradoxical moments in the timeline begin to occur in this part: Noah and Elisabeth (Charlotte's mother) have Charlotte. So, Charlotte is both a daughter and a mother in her family line.

The family structures are a closed-loop — a tell-tale hallmark of Dark's design — in which cause and effect feed perpetually into one another.

4. 1953–1986: The power plant and God particle emerge in Dark

The finishing of the Winden nuclear power plant marks a turning point. By 1986, a core accident had occurred: the power plant inadvertently created a stable form of the God Particle, the dark matter substance through which time travel is possible via wormholes.

At about this point, Helge Doppler is manipulated by Noah into kidnapping children in an attempt to test early time travel experiments. A number of these children, like Erik and Yasin, are murdered in failed attempts. Bunker and Winden caves are now major time-travel hubs, and hidden pathways connect different periods: 33 years in every direction.

In 1986, Mikkel Nielsen also comes from the year 2019. He turns out to be Michael Kahnwald, Jonas's dad, thus completing another loop within the narrative.

5. 2019–2020: The disappearances and the beginning of the end of Dark

The first season begins in June 2019, with Mikkel’s disappearance triggering the larger mystery. While this is the show's starting point, it is chronologically mid-loop. Jonas starts his first attempt to understand time travel and eventually learns of his central role in the cycle.

The apocalypse in June 2020, caused by the unstable God Particle, is a turning point where characters begin to move not only over time but between worlds as well. This marks the start of the end of the loop and the discovery of how deep recursion goes.

6. The parallel reality of Dark: Martha's world

In Season 3, it is learned that there is an alternate universe — Martha's universe — created simultaneously with the Origin World split. In this universe, Jonas is written out early, and Martha is in control of the events. This universe is parallel to much of what occurs in Jonas's world but with major reversals — e.g., reversed character arcs, reversed timelines, and alternate deaths.

Martha's universe undergoes its own apocalypse. She, too, is stuck in the same cycle of trying not to cause disaster, only to fulfill the requirements that make it possible.

7. The Unknown: The child that links the world in Dark

Jonas and Alternate Martha's son is found to be the linchpin — The Unknown. The Unknown exists in three phases of life (childhood, adulthood, and old age) and manifests in both worlds simultaneously. This character is also responsible for the critical events that maintain the loop intact, like constructing the time machines and arranging the pivotal assassinations.

Even though the show never once refers to him by name, his coming in at turning points confirms that he is the Origin of the Knot, the yin-yang power that keeps both timelines intact.

8. Claudia and the breaking of the cycle in Dark

Claudia Tiedemann plays a dual role: initially as a member of the loop and subsequently as the finder of the truth about the Origin World. She realizes that freeing the world from the loop is not through travel but by destroying the cause — the death of Tannhaus's family. She reverts events at the rear and succeeds in persuading Adam of the plan.

Her revelation is not depicted at length, but her carrying out of the plan is at the core of the last episodes.

9. The Last Journey: Jonas and Martha in the Origin World in Dark

In the final act, Claudia instructs Adam to send Alternate Jonas and Alternate Martha to the Origin World, and they go back to the evening of the auto accident. They stop it in time, saving Tannhaus's family. He never builds the time machine as a result, and the branched worlds are erased along with all individuals born as a result of them, including Alternate Jonas and Alternate Martha themselves.

This solution completes the loop entirely, ending recursion and bringing time to a linear path.

10. One Beginning, many ends

Darkness is not a setting — it is the ultimate mechanism through which all of its characters live, die, and reincarnate. What begins as a small-town mystery gradually becomes an existential maze spanning centuries and realities. The show sets up that cause can be effect, and individuals can be ancestors and descendants as much as they are casualties.

By such deconstruction, it is clear that Dark is not just about time travel — it's about the inexorable multidimensionality of human choice, ensnared in a paradox only dissolving through the acknowledgment of its origin.

The following analysis is drawn only from Dark's established plot as seen on the show and referenced by detailed fan analyses and official show run summaries. Descriptions like "Origin Trio" are popular shorthand among fans but are not used as such in the series.