Time in Linear, Even for a God
Final Fantasy VII has become severely convoluted because of the compilation. Therefore, it was deemed necessary to create a timeline. Since, this website just focuses on Zack and his role in the series, I condensed the timeline, to include only events relating to Zack. Please note that Square Enix has a few discontinuity issues, so their math doesn't match up perfectly with their statements in character profiles.
εуλ 1985 - Zack Fair is born in Gongaga.
εуλ 1997 - - Determined to become a SOLDIER, Zack leaves Gongaga and heads off towards Midgar.
εуλ 2000 (November) - Zack spent all his time on training and various missions as a SOLDIER 2nd Class at this time. SOLDIER: 2nd Class Zack and Angeal are sent to Wutai in place of Genesis. Zack Fair encounters Yuffie Kisaragi for the first time here. While taking part in operations in Wutai to bring an end to the war, Sephiroth joins up with Zack as well. Angeal goes missing.
εуλ 2000 (December) - Zack and Tseng go to Banora village. Genesis had converted Banora village into a stronghold for his army, and the evidence is destroyed by an airstrike at the hands of ShinRa.
εуλ 2001 (April) - Zack is promoted to SOLDIER 1st Class. On the same day, Genesis invades Midgar with his copy army. Cissnei of the Turks undertakes a top secret assignment to keep Zack under surveillance. Zack and Aerith meet by chance in a church in the Slums. They become intimate with each other.
εуλ 2001 (Autumn) - Zack goes on an investigative mission to the abandoned Mako Mining Facility in Modeoheim, where he meets Cloud. The two become friends. After fighting Genesis and Angeal, Zack inherits the Buster Sword.
εуλ 2002 (1/16) - A SOLDIER force including Zack is dispatched to destroy an AVALANCHE base in Icicle Lodge. Zack attends to his fellow SOLDIER comrades, Sebastian and Yishay, as their death approached. With the exception of Zack and the Turks, every member of the unit is annihilated.
εуλ 2002 (Early Summer) - Zack is ordered on a vacation to Costa del Sol. Junon and several other places are repeatedly troubled by an outbreak of synchronized attacks from the Genesis Copy Army. Zack fights in the battle to protect the city, and is reunited with Cloud, who had been tasked to rescue the citizens.
εуλ 2002 (9/22) - Zack, Sephiroth, and Cloud visit the Nibel mako reactor as part of an investigation team, due to a monster outbreak causing a malfunction. Tifa Lockhart undertakes the role of "guide" for the investigation group. Seeing the monsters that were created inside the mako reactor caused Sephiroth to doubt his own birth and humanity. Sephiroth locks himself up in the ShinRa Manor and reads over the documents left by Professor Gast, where he discovers that he was created by the Jenova Project.
εуλ 2002 (10/1) - The Nibelheim Incident begins. Zack Fair tries to stop Sephiroth, who has run amok and reduced the village of Nibelheim to ashes, but was instead defeated by him at the Nibelheim Mako Reactor. Sephiroth takes the head of his "mother" Jenova but was fatally wounded by Cloud and falls into the mako reactor, and for a time was dead. Zack and Cloud are taken as experiment samples for the Sephiroth Copy Project.
εуλ 2002 (October) - Sephiroth, Zack, and the other Nibelheim investigation team members are officially announced as being killed in action.
εуλ 2006 (12/19) - Zack takes the mako poisoned Cloud and escapes from the ShinRa Manor.
εуλ 2007 (Early Autumn) - Zack settles things with Genesis in the Banora village underground.
εуλ 2007 (End of September) - Zack is killed in the wastelands on the outskirts of Midgar. Cloud inherits the Buster Sword and heads toward Midgar.