Random Jedi Order (project)

Random Jedi Order, usually called just by its acronym RJO, is an ever-evolving megacrossover started by ameliette in 2009. The basic premise is that in December 2009, two girls (essentially Amy and her then-best friend) find and activate a machine that can bring fictional characters to life. It was supposed to be crack (after all, it was inspired by several other crack megacrossovers), but Amy can't write crack and fairly quickly the story turned into a collection of whumpy events. (Even though Amy didn't find out about the word 'whump' until several years later.)

Beginnings
There was an earlier plan that RJO got developed on top of: Jedi Council. The original simply existed, it didn't have a dramatic beginning or a plot. It was more roleplay-like, with Amy and friend grabbing extra MSN Messenger accounts and holding 'Jedi Council meetings' where they discussed things like how to turn Finland into a perfect Jedi nation. This version contained only Star Wars and Batman characters, for a total of maybe fifteen.

Development
Soon enough Amy started writing a true beginning for this 'verse, the one where the girls find the machine. At first, Amy just listed all her and her friends' favorite characters, intending it to really be crack. One person even had a frying pan and a broom as weapons. But as Amy wrote down the ideas she had, she found she had no idea how to write some of the characters or fandoms, so their scenes never came to be realized.

Over time, Amy started picking up more fandoms, and in true teenager fashion, her first thought was always 'but what if I was there'. With RJO already existing, Amy ended up piling everything she read and watched into the same project, appearing roughly in same order as she discovered them in real life.

Some of the original fandoms were dropped and later put in properly, and some new ones were added and later dropped. The original list is 68 characters from 8 different fandoms, but it eventually exploded into 12 main fandoms and over 300 characters.

Involved Fandoms
Unless otherwise mentioned, dates in this section refer to in-universe dates. Distinction is made because some characters appear in RJO before their first canon media appearance, or because some events got shuffled around and were written much later than they happened.

Star Wars
The one that started it all and has been there in every version. Earliest plans involved EU (now Legends) characters many years after the movies, but the list was quickly cut to canon characters only. Disney canon did, of course, add more characters to this list, and even the starter crew kept changing until The Clone Wars finale in real-life May 2020. (Not to mention the specifics of the plot.)

Layers: What this layering means is that eg. Kix, a clone who was frozen in cryosleep before the end of the Clone Wars and not awoken until 35 ABY, knows about the First Order in 2009, long before the sequel movies were even thought of. Ahsoka and Rex have a similar situation, knowing the end of TCW and about Rebels when TCW's own season 2 was still airing.
 * December 2009 imports (starter crew): Original Trilogy characters from end of Return of the Jedi, Prequel Trilogy characters with OT memories, TCW characters with OT memories.
 * February 2018 mergers: Rebels characters from end of RotJ.
 * March 2020 mergers: Sequel Trilogy characters a few months after Rise of Skywalker.

Imported characters included both heroes and villains, and the villains had to be dealt with somehow. This started a series of stories with more original plots, unrelated to canon events and the import process itself. Some ideas from the original Jedi Council also appeared early on, but those have largely been scrapped. One that survived is Anakin Skywalker being kidnapped in June 2010 in an attempt to get him to turn back to the dark side, even if the culprit, the rescue team, and the surrounding plot all changed between revisions.

Warrior Cats
Amy's first own addition. Heck, reading other crossovers was how she discovered Warriors in the first place. Was in the original cast list, but wasn't properly folded in until Fullmetal Alchemist was added. Doesn't have nearly as many layers as Star Wars: just one bunch of characters in June 2010, and a couple more to round out the roster in December 2012. Characters were picked from the end of The New Prophecy arc, with some relevant memories from Power of Three included.

Fullmetal Alchemist
Not part of the original cast list, but likely inspired by a friend who was in the early list, so said friend features heavily in these chapters. First version of the import featured things that were later changed, like the import machine being located elsewhere from the school, or Amy being able to transform between human and nekera appearance at will. Warriors was properly included as nekeras in this story. First instance of 'character appears with canon injuries' trope, which would later become almost a requirement. Characters from episode 41 of Brotherhood anime/equivalent chapter of manga.

Originally there would have been more characters added in Dec 2012, but eventually it was revised to only add characters once, in January 2011. First version dealt with FMA's own plot points mostly off-screen, but in the 2020 revision this was changed to a merger during the post-import adventure.

Post-import story was, from the beginning, Amy being kidnapped by Homunculi and being subsequently rescued from South Pole, but details changed wildly over time. Also first instance of 'character gets flu post-import' trope, which has also become a staple in later texts. Amy was experimenting with shipping her character with canon characters, which influenced a couple of ideas.

Avatar: the Last Airbender
Imported in June 2011, with characters from the middle of the finale. Last Agni Kai happens in RJO, there's injuries, yadda yadda. Possibly first time where the injuries and recovery are really focused on. Amy decided to ship her character with Zuko instead of Edward, and it would stay that way for several years. Amy's character would also quickly become a firebender. Avatar (well, just Zuko, let's be honest) got several stories that happened over the next years.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Imported January 2012, from middle of Strikers finale. No big stand-alone story post-import, but very much part of the 'promnapping' plot that happened in February 2012. Said plot also cleaned up a couple of hanging threads from Star Wars and Avatar, which resulted in several not-quite-bad guys leaving the villains and joining RJO.

Sailor Moon
Imported June 2012, from an original adventure that took place in 2000. A chance to bring some more magical girls, and especially original senshi, to the project.

Legend of Korra
Imported December 2012, from end of season 1 finale. So now RJO has two Avatars. The rest of the show was merged and sub-merged at the end of each season.

Harry Potter
This was also part of the original roster, albeit in much, much smaller numbers than it eventually ended up being. Amy wasn't originally into Potter, but added it because everyone else was including it in their series. But later she watched the films and decided to include them anyway. Imported in August 2013, characters from beginning of Order of the Phoenix. Doesn't see much use in texts these days, but wormed its way into the DNA of the project, appearing in several stories, so the series can't be easily removed.

Marvel Cinematic Universe
Was originally added in summer 2013, but then flipped places with Harry Potter above. Import in May 2014, soon after events of Winter Soldier. Civil War took place soon after in RJO, and in 2015, Hawkeye's family, as well as the extended Avengers team was merged. Thor left Earth soon after, being the first to break the rule of no space travel. In early 2018 Wakanda was quietly merged, just before Thanos' forces attacked Earth, and RJO came to realize that Doctor Strange and Spider-Man had also simply... appeared without their knowledge.

Digimon Adventure
First time a known story took place inside RJO. Doylean reasoning is that Amy wanted a conflict, and Tri hadn't yet started. Watsonian explanation for how it was possible ended up being that the Firewall had 'locked away' everyone's memories of Digimon in RJO's 2011 in preparation for Adventure's events. Characters from Nanoha were the first to notice the discrepancy, having been imported after the lockout, and were able to reason the original Digimon story into RJO's care.

Thus, Adventure took place in August 2014, 02 in 2018, and Tri in 2021. The children started out a little older than in canon, and had outside help, but mostly the same things happened.

Sly Cooper
There were a couple of non-canon texts where RJO's Amy was in Sly's world, but it wasn't serious until another friend was involved in one such story. In that version, Sly's cane and the Thievius Raccoonus turned out to be the Intelligent Device Golden Tail and magilink Tome of Golden Light, respectively. At the same time, Amy was writing an Uncharted story with the same friend, and powers were leaking from one story to the other, so the decision was made to make Golden Tail RJO-Amy's canon Device. This canon export was placed in 2018, with the characters being merged some time later.

This is the first time a show was added export first, or where the characters are directly sub-merged, simply civilians one day waking up with the characters memories.

Sly Cooper characters were also heavily involved in Forged Family, and Sharon Cooper from that world did appear in main RJO in 2028.

Uncharted
Also added export first, with a yet further twist, in that it wasn't even the regular RJO-Amy who had lived as Nate's sister, but an alternate world version, from a so called Mirror-RJO. With Forged Family's events sub-merged to main RJO-Amy in September 2028, she soon found several characters from Uncharted imported in her world.

Endeavour / Lewis
Mentioned a couple of times in Forged Family, properly imported into main RJO soon after the big sub-merging in 2028.

Pretty Cure
Involved as three separate fanseries, happening over the years. RJO-Amy was a classmate to the Greenleaf Pretty Cure Cures a year before RJO started, Pretty Cure Animae Borealis happened outside RJO's knowledge in 2017 which was otherwise uneventful time, and of course Pretty Cure Safe Harbor took place in RJO's capital in 2031, with RJO-Amy's daughter as one of the main characters.

ElfQuest
Involved in stories of dubious canonicity. In an old plan, RJO-Amy spent three years in Abode during the three days she was imprisoned on South Pole in 2011, and the series was imported in spring 2013. The export (which wasn't yet called that) may be canon for Mirror-Amy. Another file details the import in mid-2020s, right after the events of Forged Family and Blossoming Marble, but this is non-canonical or at least happens in a non-canon alternate universe. Yet another drops an Amy into Abode early in the comics, presumably after her death in some version of RJO. Was part of the original crack cast list, but was dropped because the society was too hard to write into RJO's post-apocalyptic scenario.

The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings
Only involved in Blossoming Marble, where Mirror-Amy wakes up after her death in Forged Family. Of course, considered canon in that after Blossoming Marble, Mirror-Amy's memories collapse/sub-merge into main RJO-Amy.

Transformers Prime
Also involved only in Forged Family. (Uncharted, Sly Cooper and Prime all happened thanks to the same friend.)

TMNT
Three files were started, but not much was written. Considered non-canonical.