top of page

EXO Storyline 01: First Visit to Earth & the Capture - start of it all

MAMA, HISTORY, EXO’rDIUM, WHAT IS LOVE, MAMA’16 & OVERDOSE

We read the origin story of EXO in the last blog, if you missed it here is the link. Let's start the timeline with when EXO came to earth for the first time to learn and live with humans and continued to maintain our peace throughout. This bit of the story was revealed in the EXO'rDIUM'16 opening VCR.


Note: I don't even want to call it CGI so whatever it is, it's horrible in this video. HORRIBLE. But at least puts the story forward I guess.

But sometime during these thousand years that they have been living on earth, Red Force or his eye to be precise tries to attack the tree of life to steal its heart that can give Red Force (RF) unimaginable powers. But before it could happen, EXO goes to retrieve the heart. Breaks it into two and hides in 2 different universes in 2 different groups. EXO-K in one universe and EXO-M in another, so that Red Force could never lay his hands on it. The only person who can teleport freely between the universes is Kai, as shown in the MV. He teleports to all EXO-K members and then to Chen who is an EXO-M member. But when all the EXO members reach Earth from their respective universes, they realize the people have somehow changed. They have gone cold. The members in MAMA lyrics are asking questions to Mama (Ruling God or the Majesty in Korean), why have humans changed.


The MAMA MV also emphasizes the separation of EXO-K and EXO-M throughout the video, separating them into different universes, the only interactions between the EXO-K & EXO-M members we see are between the parallel members e.g: Kai & Luhan, DO & Chen, Tao & Sehun, Suho & Xiumin, Beakhyun & Lay and last but not the least Chanyeol & Kris.

After the MAMA incident, as explained in the MV EXO traveled back to Earth but this time, they had to pay the price to settle down here as shown in the MNET Asian Music Awards 2016 Opening performance. They had to sacrifice their powers to be deemed as humans.

Once here, they lived as humans without their powers on earth as mentioned in the HISTORY lyrics. The lyrics say:

I went round and round from far away

And I came back here to start again

I’m filled with errors but as I learn, I can get stronger

The day we realize that the sun is one that is big and great

Everyone together goes toward our future

I need you and you want me, on this planet called earth

When on earth, EXO is on the mission to find a way to defeat Red Force. In the WHAT IS LOVE MV, all the members are traveling in duos or as a trio (In the case of Beakhyun, Lay & Chen), either looking for something or waiting for something. Seemingly the Eclipse.

Everyone is waiting and anticipating the Solar Eclipse. Tao is fighting someone. Kai and Xiumin and being followed by some cars, but they don’t seem bothered by it. And Chanyeol is searching for something with a dairy in his hand, which seems like a prophecy book. On this, you can see something like this.



Suho to Beakhyun, Beakhyun to Lay, and then into a hexagram with Kai at the center. This order can be the order of tasks they need to perform the purify the RF or the power that has to be transferred from one member to other while Kai unlocks it at the end to purify the RF, both of these are just theories and likely at this point. Chanyeol finds a stone with Lay’s symbol and then the one with Suho’s symbol.

Then comes the Eclipse and the EXO-K & EXO-M is reunited.

This MV can be here or one of the last videos in the timeline for 2 reasons.

  1. Chanyeol knows what to do to purify the world of RF, it’s literally written on the book he is carrying. It makes total sense to have this as the last MV in the timeline. But if it’s not the last MV, most likely RF wiped clean his memories.

  2. All the EXO-K and EXO-M members are together. So again this can be the very start of their timeline where they were all together before the RF attached the Tree of Life, or at the very end of the timeline right before they are about to purify the RF from the world and are waiting for the eclipse to jumpstart the process.

  3. Another reason this might be the end of the EXO timeline is when PathcodeEXO Twitter handle posted on 26th March 2015: Beginning=End The same End=Beginning was then posted during the TEMPO Era.

Well if this is in fact one of the last MV, then SM is smart and very forward-thinking by the fact 3 members have left the group so making the prophecy of 12 legends coming together to purify the RF would be impossible, otherwise.


For the sake of this theory, let's consider this MV fits here at the start and this is the first solution that the EXO members found to defeat the Red Force.


There is a little disconnect here, so I don’t know how they ended up in the maze. Maybe, once they were reunited and knew how to defeat the Red Force, they knowingly went to the maze to face the Red Force. OVERDOSE MV shows all the members scattered in the maze trying to reach the centre of it. DO gets a box when inside the maze, when he opens it he sees flashes of hands against a white box. Which seems like a premonition of the TEMPO’s MV. This seems like a warning about what would happen if the members reach the centre of the maze, however, the members still keep going. At the end of the MV, we see Kai (EXO-K) and Luhan (EXO-M) finding themselves at the center of the maze. This seems like Red Force’s lab.

I will conclude this post with the overview of this phase in the graphics below:

Let me know what you think in the comments. Do you have any other questions about the EXO timeline? Let me know and I will try to answer them. I will write about the next phase of the EXO timeline which is EXO 02: Experiments, Dreams & the Escape (KOKOBOP, LOVE ME RIGHT, TEMPO, EXplOration, LUCKY 1, MAMA’14)

Related Posts

See All
bottom of page