Master Timeline
How to Use This Timeline
This is the franchise’s chronological spine. It exists to prevent contradictions and to show creators where their story sits in relation to fixed points.
Fixed — immovable canon. No story may alter these events or their outcomes. Canonical — source-attested and strongly fixed; a creator may explore the margins but not the core. Implied — historically grounded but date-flexible; may be positioned within the indicated window.
When in doubt, place your story before the Duel. The Duel (c. 1470s) and the Fall (1511) are the two fixed poles that generate all dramatic gravity in this universe. Everything between them is the slow collapse of the world’s greatest port.
The Spine — c. 1400 to 1530+
| Date | Event | Category | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| c. 1400 | Parameswara founds Malacca after interpreting the mousedeer omen at the Bertam River | Founding | Fixed |
| c. 1401–1408 | Parameswara consolidates the settlement, establishes first tributary and trade alliances along the Straits | Political | Implied |
| c. 1405–1433 | Zheng He’s treasure fleet voyages to Malacca — multiple visits. Chinese protection shields the young sultanate from Siamese and Majapahit aggression | External | Canonical |
| c. 1409 | Parameswara converts to Islam, takes the title Sultan Iskandar Shah, marries the Princess of Pasai. Malacca formally enters the Islamic world | Political / Spiritual | Fixed |
| c. 1409–1433 | Malacca establishes formal tributary relations with Ming China | Political / External | Fixed |
| c. 1414 | Death of Sultan Iskandar Shah. Succession to Megat Iskandar Shah | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1424 | Death of Megat Iskandar Shah. Succession to Muhammad Shah | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1430s | Ming withdrawal from active Southeast Asian diplomacy following the death of the Yongle Emperor. Chinese protection becomes nominal rather than operational | External | Canonical |
| c. 1440s | The Five Companions — Hang Tuah, Hang Jebat, Hang Kasturi, Hang Lekir, Hang Lekiu — meet as youths and train in silat under the master Adi Putra. They defeat pirates and a man running amok, drawing the Bendahara’s attention | Companions | Fixed |
| c. 1444 | Death of Muhammad Shah. Brief, disputed reign of Abu Syahid Shah | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1446 | Accession of Sultan Muzaffar Shah. Territorial expansion begins. Malacca’s trade network extends into the peninsula and across the Straits | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1450s | Hang Tuah is presented to Sultan Muzaffar Shah. Begins his ascent through court service | Companions | Fixed |
| c. 1456 | Tun Perak appointed Bendahara. Begins the most consequential administrative tenure in Malaccan history | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1459 | Death of Sultan Muzaffar Shah. Accession of Sultan Mansur Shah. The Golden Age opens | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1459–1477 | The Golden Age under Sultan Mansur Shah and Bendahara Tun Perak. Malacca’s territory expands to include Pahang, Terengganu, Selangor, parts of Sumatra, and the Riau Archipelago. The port becomes the world’s foremost entrepôt | Political | Fixed |
| c. 1460s | Hang Tuah defeats the Javanese champion Taming Sari in single combat at the Majapahit court. He is awarded the Keris Taming Sari, said to grant invulnerability to its wielder | Companions | Fixed |
| c. 1460s | Hang Tuah is sent to Pahang to bring the princess Tun Teja to Sultan Mansur Shah. He seduces her under false pretences; she believes he courts her for himself. On the voyage home, he reveals she is meant for the Sultan. Loyalty as cruelty. She never forgives him. | Companions | Fixed |
| c. 1470s | Courtiers, jealous of Hang Tuah’s closeness to the Sultan, fabricate accusations of treason. The Sultan, in rash fury, orders Hang Tuah’s execution | Companions | Fixed |
| c. 1470s | Bendahara Tun Perak defies the execution order and hides Hang Tuah, faking his death. The state’s greatest weapon preserved against the state’s own ruler | Companions | Fixed |
| c. 1470s | Hang Jebat, believing his closest friend dead, seizes the royal palace in open rebellion — not for power, but in protest of injustice. “Raja zalim, raja disanggah.” (A tyrannical king must be opposed.) | Companions | Fixed |
| c. 1470s | The Sultan, unable to defeat Jebat, begs Tun Perak for help. Tun Perak reveals Hang Tuah lives. Tuah is pardoned. The Sultan orders him to kill Jebat | Companions | Fixed |
| c. 1470s | THE DUEL. Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat fight. The battle lasts days. Jebat falls. With his dying words, Jebat forces Tuah to confront what loyalty has cost them both. This is the franchise’s central event. | Companions | Fixed |
| c. 1477 | Death of Sultan Mansur Shah. Accession of Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah I | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1478 | Majapahit severely weakened at the Battle of Kediri. The last major regional counterweight to Malacca begins its terminal decline | External | Canonical |
| c. 1480s+ | Hang Tuah is sent to court the Puteri Gunung Ledang on behalf of the Sultan. Her seven impossible conditions — ending with a bowl of the Sultan’s own son’s blood — are refused. Mortal power meets the supernatural and cannot meet the terms | Companions / Supernatural | Fixed |
| c. 1488 | Death of Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah I. Accession of Sultan Mahmud Shah. The game era begins. | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1488 | Majapahit’s final collapse. The last major Hindu-Buddhist regional power ends. Demak (Islamic Java) rises in its place, with its own ambitions toward the Straits | External | Canonical |
| c. 1490s | Tun Perak’s authority wanes in old age. Succession anxieties intensify within the Bendahara network. The apparatus that held the sultanate together for four decades has no clear heir | Political | Implied |
| c. 1497–1499 | Vasco da Gama rounds Africa and reaches India. The Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean trade network becomes unavoidable intelligence | External | Canonical |
| c. 1498 | Death of Tun Perak. End of the most consequential Bendahara tenure in Malaccan history. The sultanate loses its spine | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1498–1500 | Tun Perpatih Putih (Tun Perak’s brother) serves as Bendahara. A caretaker tenure. The network is maintained but not led | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1500 | Tun Mutahir appointed Bendahara | Political | Canonical |
| c. 1500 | Portuguese establish sustained presence in Indian Ocean trading networks. Red Sea and Persian Gulf routes begin to feel pressure. Gujarati and Arab merchants in Malacca grow anxious | External | Canonical |
| 1505 | Portuguese Estado da India formally established under Viceroy Francisco de Almeida. The institutional apparatus of maritime empire is operational and directed at the spice routes | External | Fixed |
| c. 1509 | Diogo Lopes de Sequeira arrives in Malacca with a Portuguese fleet — first direct Portuguese contact with the city. The visit collapses into mutual hostage-taking. Diplomatic channels do not recover | External | Fixed |
| c. 1510 | Sultan Mahmud Shah executes Bendahara Tun Mutahir on fabricated treason charges. The last effective institutional check on the Sultan’s authority is removed by the Sultan himself | Political | Canonical |
| 1511 | Afonso de Albuquerque returns with a full invasion fleet. Malacca falls after sustained bombardment and assault. The Sultan flees. The city burns. | External / Political | Fixed |
| 1511+ | Hang Tuah does not die in battle. He is seen in the aftermath. He makes a pilgrimage, becomes a wandering darwish, and vanishes from the historical record. “Takkan Melayu hilang di dunia.” | Companions | Fixed — fate unresolved |
| 1511+ | Survivors flee south. The royal line re-establishes sovereignty at multiple points along the peninsula. Resistance continues | Political | Fixed |
| c. 1528 | The Sultanate of Johor formally established. Malay sovereignty endures in exile. | Political | Canonical |
Sultan Reigns & Bendahara Tenures
| Reign | Sultan | Bendahara | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| c. 1400–1414 | Parameswara / Sultan Iskandar Shah | — | Founder. Converts to Islam c. 1409. Establishes Ming tributary relationship. |
| c. 1414–1424 | Megat Iskandar Shah | — | Consolidation. Ming protection secured. |
| c. 1424–1444 | Muhammad Shah | — | Trade network expansion. Islam deepens within the court. |
| c. 1444–1446 | Abu Syahid Shah | — | Brief reign. Disputed succession. |
| c. 1446–1459 | Muzaffar Shah | Tun Ali → Tun Perak (from c. 1456) | Territorial expansion begins. The Five Companions rise to prominence. |
| c. 1459–1477 | Mansur Shah | Tun Perak | The Golden Age. Peak of Malaccan power and territory. The Tuah/Jebat story occurs here. |
| c. 1477–1488 | Alauddin Riayat Shah I | Tun Perak (declining) | Managed stability. Majapahit collapses. Portuguese appear on the horizon. |
| c. 1488–1511 | Mahmud Shah | Tun Perak (d. 1498) → Tun Perpatih Putih (c. 1498–1500) → Tun Mutahir (exec. c. 1510) | The game era. Institutional authority hollows out. Portuguese pressure mounts. The fall. |
For Creators
Shadow of the Straits and Arus Dalam are set entirely within Sultan Mahmud Shah’s reign (c. 1488–1511). Stories set in this era inherit a Sultan whose authority is real but institutionally constrained, a Bendahara succession with no Tun Perak to stabilise it, and a city whose cosmopolitan brilliance is already shadowed by the fractures that will destroy it.
The Tuah/Jebat Duel has already happened. Its moral weight is in the past — which means every character living in the game era carries it. The question every character must eventually answer is not what happened but what do you do with what happened.
The Five Companions — Life Arc
The Companions are not the protagonists of most franchise stories. They are the moral horizon against which other characters are measured. Every creator must know where the Companions sit in their story’s timeline.
| Life Stage | Approximate Period | What This Means for Your Story |
|---|---|---|
| Youth — Training, early combat, first recognition | c. 1440s | The idealism era. Friendship is uncomplicated. The world is still redeemable. Stories here can be action-adventure or bildungsroman. The weight of what is coming has not yet arrived. |
| Rise — Diplomatic missions, the Taming Sari, Tun Teja | c. 1450s–1460s | The complication era. Tuah’s loyalty begins to cost others. Jebat watches and says nothing. The fracture is forming but not yet visible. Stories here operate on dramatic irony — the audience knows what is coming. |
| The Duel — The trial, Jebat’s rebellion, the killing | c. 1470s | The franchise’s moral earthquake. A story set here is set inside the central event. Handle with extreme care. The outcome is fixed; how characters experience it is not. |
| Aftermath — Tuah serves on; the others are gone | c. 1475–1511 | The haunted era. Tuah is the last Companion standing. The most powerful man in the Sultanate and the loneliest. Stories here deal with consequence, survival, and the cost of loyalty chosen over justice. This is the primary game era. |
| Disappearance — Tuah after the fall | Post-1511 | Open territory. His fate is unresolved by franchise rule. This is deliberate. |
Franchise Rule — Companion Fates
Hang Kasturi is killed by Hang Tuah on the Sultan’s orders prior to the Jebat confrontation — this is fixed canon. His death is the foreshadowing beat: it shows exactly what Tuah will do when the Sultan requires it. Do not move, remove, or reassign this event.
Hang Lekir and Hang Lekiu fade from the primary narrative after the Duel. Their individual fates are not fixed and are available for expansion — they represent the franchise’s two most available canonical characters for writer assignment.
Hang Tuah’s fate after the fall is permanently unresolved. No franchise expression may definitively kill him, save him, or explain his disappearance. The open question is load-bearing — it is why “Takkan Melayu hilang di dunia” still resonates.
Open Territory Windows
These periods have no fixed canon conflicts. Creators may set original stories here without risk of contradicting established events. Richness rating reflects the amount of established world context inherited — not the quality of stories possible.
| Window | Period | What’s Established | Richest For |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Founding Generation | c. 1400–1440 | Malacca is young and precarious. Islam is new. Chinese protection is the safety net. The Companions have not yet been born or are infants. | Origin stories, political drama, the mythic past; stories where Malacca could still have become something different. |
| The Companions’ Youth | c. 1440–1455 | Tuah, Jebat, and the others are youths. No fixed events have yet occurred. The city is on the rise, optimistic, expanding. | Coming-of-age, martial arts, friendship before stakes; the only period in the franchise without dramatic irony. |
| The Rise — Between Missions | c. 1455–1468 | Substantial undocumented service exists between the canonical diplomatic episodes. Tun Perak’s mata-mata is growing; the port is at near-peak complexity. | Espionage, adventure, political intrigue at full Malaccan richness, without the gravitational weight of the Duel. |
| Between the Duel and the Fall | c. 1475–1500 | Post-Duel Malacca. Tuah serves alone; Jebat’s rebellion has changed how the court reads loyalty. Tun Perak is aging; his successors are not him. The rot is visible to those who know where to look. | Tragedy, institutional decay, the long political shadow of a single act of justice-versus-loyalty. Stories where the protagonist can see the end coming and cannot stop it. |
| The Shadow Era | c. 1500–1511 | The game’s primary territory. The city at its most cosmopolitan and most compromised simultaneously. The Portuguese are a known threat; internal factions have already begun calculating post-Malacca futures. | Every genre. This is the richest period for every kind of story — the cosmopolitanism is fully realised and the collapse has already begun. |
| The Johor Era | c. 1511–1550+ | Exile, resistance, the founding of a new sovereignty. The royal line continues. Malay identity reconstitutes itself under different conditions. | Survival narrative, political rebuilding, the long aftermath of conquest; stories about what a people does with its history after the city is gone. |