The Sims/WMG

The player isn't god, but rather a conscience assigned to one or more families
The Build mode is the family choosing between many, many different houses, and choosing certain adjustments that they would like. Buy Mode is the conscience overseeing a cost-benefit analysis of want and need items on a phone catalog with ridiculously fast delivery and setup service (no IKEA in Sim Nation) and the characters sleepwalk through their jobs, or do things that would be expected of them being in the job. The opportunities for advancement are situations in which the character's conscience, loyalty to the rules of their job, and sometimes self-benefit drive conflict. The conscience actually has to be consulted in these cases and these cases only. The player telling a character to, say, continue cooking or exercising and them complaining that they really have to use the restroom is a conflict between what they think they should be doing and what their body tells them is imperative. And, occasionally, a "defective conscience" (you know who you are) gets fired for losing an entire family (though if you can ber a good enough conscience, and, actually, arbiter of common sense, to add members over time, the conscience enforcement agency doesn't mind if you lose every member of your original family). Actually, a "conscience" might not just be fired, but "terminated" in a lethal way after losing every human under their charge, giving some real incentive to keeping someone alive at all times.


 * Speaking of IKEA, the catalog description for one of the cheap tables in The Sims 2 describes it as basically being the Sim-world equivalent. You don't have to set it up though...
 * And now there is and IKEA stuff pack.
 * Considering in The Sims 2, the Grim Reaper appears when you lose everyone, the concience may actually be terminated.
 * This also explains what the Therapist and the Social Bunnies are-guys sent in to maintain the sanity of Sims belonging to incompetent consciences. Of course, given that only said Sims and the conscience can see them...
 * In The Sims 2 (PSP), the horrible truth is that the player is a consciousness inside the green crystal who can control others' actions. Makes sense, neh?
 * Alternatively, the consciousness in the Plumbob may be 'the Watcher' god from The Sims Medieval.

Said conscience is not assigned, but a symbiote.
A mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship is pretty much the only way Sims could have become the dominant species. Sims themselves are not truly sapient-- perhaps closer to the mental level of, say, an orangutan-- but the symbiote bolsters their brain power enough to prevent societal collapse.

The neighboorhoods are the Stepford Smiler equivalent of a Dystopia.
Beneath the suburban facade is amind controlling Police State. The Sims cannot resist any authority: there are no appeals to reclaim their children being taken away. No household can have more then eight people: they start slipping birth control into the water supply until someone moves out. No one can even think about fighting with someone until they're incredibly pissed at someone, breaking through the mind control. Even then no one can commit murder. The political system is a sham: there can be an entire neighborhood of mayors. The criminal career track is accepted by the police state to discredit the mind control theory. The fact that one cannot get injured at all in the military is owed due to the organ harvesting of under performing children to "military schools" that ensure that they don't lose any soldiers even if they have to use several children's worth of organs. They started releasing them to adoption later to discredit anyone who reveals the truth.
 * And the Therapist is their agent sent to maintain order before a low-aspiration Sim snaps and kills someone.
 * And to administer more mind control to keep the Sim placid and under control. In fact, the low aspiration meter is just a measure to show how little or how much mind control the Sim is under. Platinum means they are totally and completely controlled by the system, while Red means they are close to breaking free.

The Sims live on a planet like Venus, where days are longer than years.
This would explain why they're Elders at only 55 days old. Though it would be troubling to have a date last 7 months...

Sims have a race of super-strong pikmin working for them.
Part of the bills paid goes toward pikmin food, or whatever they would be paid. The Sims have incredibly low finger strength, so they can't get out of the pool without a ladder, and they can;t move objects around the house, so the pikmin do it for them. Flies and cockroaches scare them so much not because they're bugs (and because flies are apparently lethal Sim-ivores), but because they attack the pikmin. The fire doesn;t scare them so much they stop spraying it, the extinguishers harm the pikmin trying to form a bucket brigade and the firefighters are specially trained to stop the fire first and save pikmin second. Pikmin in the service of the city take away the garage each day, which is why there's a school bus and pizza/maid/carpool vehicles, but no garbage trucks.

The Player is an alien.
The little diamond (plumb-bob), is a space-ship which can control Sim's minds when it hovers over them. Babies aren't selectable, because there's not much you can do with them. The ship turns red as an alert when their Sims needs fail because you can't exactly control a dead guy.

The Universe of The Sims is a dystopia modeled after 1984 and The Prisoner
In The Sims, the Chance Card for the actor career track describes starring in a remake of Citizen Kane. This implies that The Sims is either set in the future or in an alternate universe with a Point of Divergence later than May 1, 1941. It is possible, although unlikely, that the game is both set in the future and an alternate universe. The games are laden with futuristic elements including robot servants, electronic sentience, teleportation, matter replication, virtual reality...

So what is the alternate universe of The Sims like? Firstly, English, French, Chinese, Dutch, every language has been replaced with Simlish, a simplistic language comprised of repeated phrases that communicate (judging by the thought bubbles and the process of writing a Simlish novel depicted in later expansions of The Sims 2) very simple concepts. This is straight out of Orwell's 1984, in which the constructed language "newspeak" is used to eliminate the ability to communicate complex information and concepts that are deemed unsuitable.

Some vestiges of English remain. For example, the unintelligible Sea Chanty from The Sims 2: Bon Voyage contains some English phrases ("Yo Ho Ho") and contains phrases that sound like slightly garbled English. It is important to note that the Sea Chanty is taught to Sims by a ghost, explaining both the garbled initial rendition and the inability of Sims to render it in English. Similarly the monolithic School Cheer (The same for all schools which, along with the interchangeable nature of all degrees, suggests that different schools teach the exact same curriculum in the exact same way, suggesting that they are all organized by the same dictatorial body) ends with the line "Go Gerbits!" The presence of the word "Go" suggests that this was, once, originally a specific school cheer that was translated into Simlish. The Nature of Education in The Sims games bears some examination. While by the time of The Sims 2 there has been sufficient liberalization to allow for the creation of Private Schools, admittance is based on nepotism and connections rather than academic merit or the ability to pay the nonexistent tuition fees. The implication here is that these superior schools are reserved for the powerful and connected rather than operating on the open market. Higher Education, on the other hand, consists of three universities. Each offers the same programs and apparently has the same quality of education despite the wide gulf that should exist between an old world school renowned for its academics and a Tech School in the middle of nowhere. The cheerleaders and mascots each university has dress the same and use the same cheers, suggesting that their role has more to do with indoctrinating students and cheering for The Party or The State than sports teams or even the school.

The liberalization represented by the private schools is a motif in the games. Although the party (represented in the neighbourhood view by the player) retains sufficient control to decide upon control over travel restrictions (represented by adding new neighbourhoods in The Sims and The Sims 2) and even the flow of the seasons in The Sims 2: Seasons (no doubt as a result of the invention of the same kind of weather machine that can be cobbled together from scrap in the game), by the time of The Sims 2: Open for Business enough liberalization has occurred to allow for a limited free market and entrepreneurship, which is novel considering that for the past fifty game years only state controlled enterprise(represented by the player's ability to place buildings in The Sims 3 and design their interiors and exteriors in The Sims and The Sims 2 prior to the Open for Business pack) was considered allowable.

This suggests the emergence of an overall arc. In The Sims 3, the chronologically first installment of the series, it is possible for Sims to buy partnerships in state-controlled enterprise, or even to buy "ownership". Ownership however does not confer any additional rights beyond control over staffing and an additional stipend drawn from the building's revenue. By the time of The Sims, all buildings are directly controlled by The Community. But rather than the decaying soviet-style architecture of Orwell, the Sims are instead gifted with a simulated culture that recalls Disneyworld. It is this simulated culture that evokes The Prisoner, but it is Americana rather than an Edwardian seaside resort in which the characters are trapped. This village progresses over the course of the games. In The Sims 3, it seems most like a genuine town, with a history (founded by The Goths in the Victorian Era, gentrified and "built up" by the Langraab family) and genuine social problems. By the time of The Sims, it's transitioned totally to simulated culture, with travel restrictions (simulated by the loss of neighbourhood size and the one-by-one reconnections with other districts). It has also grown from a small town to a genuine city.

The travel restrictions and the growth in simulated culture should not be read as an indication that The Sims 3 is any less of a dystopia than The Sims. By The Sims, police have ceased carrying out random interviews and searches of garbage in order to build detailed dossiers. Although it is entirely possible that these functions have somehow been automated (perhaps the immovable garbage can itself builds such a dossier), the violation of poverty is less overt. In addition, mind control is ubiquitous in all three games, with the green "plumbob" representing active mind control by the state (represented again by the player) of a particular citizen. The liberal reforms of The Sims 2 are not enough to curb this form of mind control. Indeed, there are freely available machines and chemical treatments which allow for voluntary brainwashing to change anything from life-goals to sexual interests. Depending on how the rewards system is read in The Sims 3, this treatment is already invented and available to select members of the public.

The approach to law enforcement is markedly different in the chronologically latter games. In The Sims 3, criminals are often arrested while carrying out their crimes and the criminal organization is depicted as being separate and distinct from the state. However, twenty-five years later the criminal career track cannot result in lengthy arrest, and police instead focus on enforcing pollution bylaws or capturing burglars who are not part of the genuine criminal fraternity. Another twenty five years pass, and this criminal fraternity aspires not to gangsterism but to supervillainy and tight latex costumes with spikes. This represents the transition of the so-called criminal track from genuine crime towards propaganda carried out with the cooperation of state-controlled superheroes drawn from the ranks of the police department.

The Sims is arguably the most dystopian of the three games. In it, social control is complete and the personalities of the citizens have been reduced to quantitative, not qualitative values. (Qualitative aspects are reintroduced to the shattered minds of the brainwashed citizenry in The Sims 2). Vehicle ownership, a feature of The Sims 2 and The Sims 3, is banned and drivers are reliant on government-controlled carpools or taxi services. Freedom of movement is nonexistent, as the player/state controls which expansion packs (And therefore which districts) are accessible to his citizens. It represents the time when professional progression eschews both the entrepreneurship of The Sims 2 post-open for business and the softer, more complex and flexible progression of The Sims 3, when objects were (as in the soviet union) only available in one colour and iteration. Laptops and cellular telephones have gone from virtually ubiquitous to banned. Travel is highly restricted, to the point where when it is allowed in The Sims: Vacation it is only allowed to a single obviously constructed island. While other dystopian elements are present in the other games, such as travel restrictions, the perpetual importance of the military (which will be discussed in a moment) alcohol prohibition, and the above mentioned restrictions on education and language, The Sims represents the height of the oppressive government's power, and the height of its highly constructed, mannered, false culture.

The role of the military is the last, and possibly most important, aspect of this dystopia. In The Sims 3, the military is almost totally centered on The Air Force. The Air Force maintains a space program that is either largely for show or largely expunged by The Sims, in which any record of a successful moon landing has been deleted. While this might suggest that The Sims has a point of divergence prior to the moon landing, the highly similar aesthetics of our universe and that of The Sims suggests that this is unlikely. The military in The Sims 3 has no war to fight and largely engages in readiness exercises. However, by The Sims it has entered into a lengthy Cold War with a neighbouring city-state called "Red City", which recalls the real life Cold War and the political war that is so famously integral to the stability of The Party in 1984.

In The Sims 3, generalship is impossible for Sims, regardless of merit or service, to achieve. Indeed, mention is made of "The General", implying that there is only one. This, along with the laughable nature of the "Leader of the Free World", implies that the actual government is military in nature. By The Sims, government has likely transitioned to a civilian dictatorship as generalship is open and political achievement is limited to electoral victories which are, in the universe of The Sims, clearly restricted to bureaucratic functions rather than genuine social or political control.

Most of these aspects, especially things such as voluntary brainwashing, an idealised American society, personalities which seem to be groomed from an early age towards a specific lifetime goal and a government-driven consumerist society seem to be very similar to the world depicted in Huxley's "Brave New World".

Which would seem to be backed up by the brand name of some of the consumer electronics: 'Soma'.

Alternatively, the Regime in The Sims and The Sims 2 could be the Ministry of Evil depicted in The Sims 3. After all, the Emperor of Evil's job description talks about the reign of the Leader of the Free World (An equally propagandistic leader) coming to an end.
 * Wow, and here I thought it was just hardware limitations. You don't Will Wright will really groom our world into The Sims do you? Wait...I have to get the door.

My ideas on the above theory.
In The Sims 3, freedom of travel is also limited: Sims are unable to travel to big cities without permission. Also, passports apparently exist, but this suggests that the Regime is not yet in full control of world.

Also, as you pointed out in The Sims, all jobs are plausibly state-controlled, but during the events of The Sims 3, Sims are able to choose being freelancers. On the other hand, the presence of ghosts suggests that hallucinogens are released into the water supply.

As for plumbobs, the answer is most likely cameras. After all, you see them when you control a Sim.

Now, what exactly are expansion packs? In my opinion, it seems that they represent government regulations - perhaps released after some offscreen riots, as all of them increase freedom of Sims.

We know that, at least in The Sims 3 geography is the same as in our world (France and Egypt exist). So, AU. Point of divergence is, in my opinion around 1950s. The "Red City" suggests a communist state, perhaps it's a newspeak word for USSR. The esthetics of The Sims evoke the feel of 1950s suburbian paradise. So, perhaps in Sims' world Mac Carthyism hasn't stopped by the end of 50s but continued to rise, and military, profiting from the scare, eventually assumed control over the USA. The Sims 3 takes place several (perhaps around 20, as Sims rapidly adapt, as evidenced by transition from 2 to 1 in only 25 years). The development of technology is very fast, but the Party is focused on creating a Zeerust-style utopia, introducing e.g. Servos.

During The Sims 2, government has given people much more freedom, stopping random searches, a degree of free market, etc. In Real Life analogous period may be Khrushchev's Thaw. Now, that the real Thaw was due to power struggle after Stalin's death and his lieutenants' tensions with secret police. So, perhaps it was the same in Sims' world? A major figure in original political system died, and several ages of relative liberalisation became possible. But it ended, resulting in relapse of invigilation. But enforcing this kind of brutal change isn't easy So, how could take away all of those freedoms by the time of The Sims? The answer is possibly the "Red City". The relationship of these two nations must have experienced a decline, or the Party used propaganda to create such a feeling of rivalry/tension. The Sims may actually happen during a war. That would explain why Sims are unable to travel to Europe, Africa or Asia - all three are currently warzones. Assuming Red City is USSR, it would be likely that the Government could have lost control in this area.

So, to sum up all of the above: never edit to say "Canon for me!" when you are too creative.

Fitting in with the above Dystopia ideas, all occupations save the Criminal one are complete shams.
In The Sims 3, you are assigned a superior no matter what career track you enter. However, the superior almost never changes, leading to absurd situations like a CEO answering to his own secretary or the Vice President being subordinate to a state senator. The only way this makes sense is if the so-called "bosses" are part of a secret society that manipulates the standings in organizations. Furthermore, Sims in the Political track often vote on propositions that they aren't even allowed to know about, and don't seem to have any legitimate control over the city/nation.

The Criminal track, however, is an Anti-Hero organization dedicated to tearing down the fake industry and replacing it with anarchy. The "same boss" phenomenon is, in this case, an example of a Sim who is merely the "brains" of the operation.
 * Its more of people you should be in good terms with since they have the audacity and balls to make you look bad amongst your otherwise spotless record

Along that line of thinking...
The GBA/DS Sims games take place before any of the other games. The Sims: Bustin' Out occurs when English is still used, and mind control hasn't been achieved as you only control one character. The Urbz: Sims in the City takes place a bit further in the future, when Simlish has been promoted as cool to get the younger generations of the populace to use it exclusively. Mind control still hasn't been used on the public, but corruption is already spreading among the government as seen with Daddy Bigbucks' evil plot. The latter game is also depicting the foiling of one or more of the soon-to-be oppresive state's plots by La Résistance.

The technology of the Sims isn't going to advance past that in The Sims 3
Rather, Will Wright's just going to get a patent on reality itself and call that The Sims 4. At least it'll be easier to play.
 * Nintendo already got that patent. The Sims 4 will be a portal to another dimension, where time flows more quickly than usual and people can be grown in seconds with perfect plastic surgery. There will unfortunately be autosaving in real time, but you'll still be able to set your own save files.
 * No, The Sims 4 will allow people to control each other's lives in real life. Unfortunately, it will also be a portal to another dimension that you have to escape into to survive the apocalypse.

Sims are the result of a genetic experiment gone horribly wrong
Think about it, if you stuck them in the center of the Labyrinth and put a bathroom at the end of it they'd somehow find their way to the toilet, yet if you don't continuously watch them they'll end up missing work because on the way to the bus they decided to take the long way rather than just going through the front door and walking 15 feet. The only possible answer for why this happens is because they were an attempt to create the perfect human that went wrong, causing them to have lapses of total retardation that cause them to water a plant for 14 hours.

The player is actually a scientist who job it is to observe the experiment and attempt to keep them from causing an accidental genocide.

The Sims are artificial
Imagine that it is the future. Humanity has created so much and discovered so much that scientists declare this the absolute peak of humanity, for now and forever. Obviously nobody likes this concept, so they create artificial humans in order to restart humanity from the very beginning. The experiment was a failure, but they continued trying, until they were finally stopped by the government. The robots were stranded on a random planet and left alone. These robots rebuilt from what they found on the planet, formed societies and civilizations. Luckily these robots were given functional reproductive systems, and they spread all around the planet. What does this explain? It explains how god-awfully stupid and yet how god-awfully smart the Sims can be. It explains why there's so much advanced technology that they really have no business having yet, and it explains the "magic". It's not magic, it's simply nanobots. The Vampires are a literal computer virus, as are the werewolves, zombies are bugged Sims that don't know what to do (since according to their programming, they're dead).

The player, on the other hand, is an AI created many years later as another attempt. The scientists freaked out when they realized exactly what they had created and dumped it on a random planet, never speaking of it again. Luckily for the AI, it landed on the Sim's planet and worked out how to hook itself up to a wireless network and take control of the hapless idiots. However, the AI can't control every Sim at once, so it set up a system that allowed it to look after Sims living in a household.

The different games are actually the same place, but the AI adding new features to the Sims in order to make them more realistic. Also, certain NPC Sims are designed and built by the AI itself to serve a purpose.(E.G The Grim Reaper was designed to prevent a number of zombie-related glitches in the death programming)

So what you're saying is that The Sims is The Matrix (of sorts) and the player is an AI/Machine. Well that's an inversion.
 * So are the full-blooded alien Sims humans (and only male Sims have the space left after inclusion of the Sim-uterus in females for a future-human compatible womb), or are they just another type of Sim?

The Sims is a human DNA storage facility like in Boichi's Hotel.
Where the player is Louis. However, instead of simply freezing the samples, human technology has gotten to the point where accurate replication of DNA (or at least haploid DNA) is feasible. The Sims are built based on their DNA- the birthing sequences are literally what is happening, where the adult's plumbob releases a smaller plumbob that it had been building inside of it for the duration of the "pregnancy", once the DNA is finished being scanned and a body built to fit. "Louis", however, has determined that AI Is a Crapshoot if not left alone for the beginning cycle of its development, and has disabled the ability of its Sim-monitoring subroutines (the player) to control Infant Sims (this ability can be restored if the subroutines progress enough that they can hack the primary AI into releasing the restriction). The aliens are part of project Ark, which in this continuity has found a habitable planet close enough for back-and-forth travel, and occasionally adds some DNA of one or more Gaian humans to the Terran Sims' gene pool in exchange for a partial extraction of the male's sample in order to keep the Gaians (pollination technician species) from getting too inbred before they are numerous enough to procreate in the long term without assistance.

Evil Showers are taken by running the water at as high a pressure and waterflow as the Sim can enable while keeping a comfortable temperature.
It's just not eco-friendly.

The first game (The Sims) set after a post-apocalyptic event.
As the discovery of Tiberium on Egypt (World Adventures), and a mention of a guy called Kane in the Science job, the Tiberium Wars most likely to happen sometime later. The Sims and The Sims 2 may or may not be a Lotus Eater Machine, as the world seems to be fully recovered into lush green meadows with 50's to 80's lifestyle and technology (The Sims), and late 90's to 2000's lifestyle and technology (The Sims 2) and chronological errors of The Sims 3, which should be take place before The Sims and The Sims 2. How about the robots and such marvels as teleporters? That's either the quirks of the Lotus Eater Machine simulation or the remaining scraps of military reorganized as technologies helpful to mankind. In addition, the Tiberium and the wars is fully gone, nothing but a videogame based on disclosed past history (In The Sims 2: Free Time expansion, a Sim can play C&C 3 Tiberium Wars). The military? They rebuilt the space program in The Sims 2 and NEVER any single mention of war in The Sims 2 provides that is there only for employment.
 * However, the devastation of the wars left a great deal of plants and fish extinct, explicitly those that prolong a Sim's life. The elixir of life was basically liquid ambrosia and it has to be be rationed for obvious reasons.
 * If so, why do only TS2 and TS3 have Apocalypse Challenges?

In The Sims, synthetic ambrosia was the only foodstuff... with nasty side effects
Which explains their apparent immortality (except for fire and drowning) The side effects are mental retardation which affects the DNA (to the point that the government has a mind-control program),perception rewiring so that the Sims see fire as an Eldritch Abomination and only stands, jittering in fear instead of run or trying to extinguish (except while commanded by the Plumb-Bob), and the last, resets the language into sign language (in The Sims 2 they construct their own letters indeed) and made-up babbling known as Simlish. The government saw this opportunity to use them as an societal simulation, coining the term "Sims". Mention of ambrosia is above (as the elixir of live)
 * It recovers with the return of standard foodstuff in The Sims 2 and also the Sims are little bit smarter, but apparently the mental retardation still occurs on the offsprings.

The plumb-bob is a mind-control remote-controlled drone programmed by the government agents in response to the above
The Social Bunny, Therapist, and various NPC's are your teammates, as well as uncontrolled family apparently being quite intelligent. Special mention to the Fireman, whereas the Sims stands in awe, jittering in fear while seeing fire (causes see WMG above), the Fireman fearlessly put of the fire, even it's only the kitchen burns.
 * The plumb-bob is invisible by normals, as well as the plumb-bob of the other fellow agents.

The Tragic Clown as seen in TS1 is a lich; the painting is his phylactery
We see him as a ghost in TS3, a Prequel, and he has an inexplicable ability to show up whenever people are miserable around his painting; he tolerates the abuse because he feeds on their emotions to sustain his unnatural life. (If we accepts TS 1 as a Lotus Eater Machine, then you can replace "lich" with "Ghost in the Machine.")

Alternatively, the Tragic Clown was resurrected with Ambrosia by people who played the first game.
Clearly, something happened to bring the Tragic Clown back to life in time for the first game. And Ambrosia, when eaten by a ghost, will bring them back to life. But why would anyone do that, you ask? Because people who played the first game wanted to figure out why he died, so they brought him back to life, leaving him ready to fail at cheering Sims up in TS1, in turn inspiring those people to resurrect him again when they play TS3.

There was a "Monster War" between TS1 and TS2
The final expasion of the first The Sims has a spell that temporalily transforms Sims in monsters, this was just a cosmetic change, but envetually they made a stronger version of the spell that actually transformed others in monsters and things went out of control.

Eventually they discovered ways to partially reverse the process, at least making the "monsters" less dangerous, this is way vampires don't need to drink blood, and werewolves aren't murderous killing machines. Despite this, prejudice against the "monsters" is still strong and for a long time, they stayed hidden.

Because of growing numbers of Aliens Hybrids and Sims accepting them, the monsters decided to try to find a place in Sim Society again, each kind coming back one by one. Also, in the meantime they discovered complete cures for the different causes of "monsterism"

Because Witches are the most to be blamed, they are the last to come out and despite being Cursed with Awesome people still don't be one.

As a alternative, the monster aren't hidden, but in concentration-camps like facilities, locked away from general public to avoid infection, and released after cures are found.
 * As a corollary to the concentration-camp theory, the pesticide used on crops in TS2 Seasons is made from PlantSims.

Don is out to make the TS2 future set
Don Lothario is a time traveller assigned to make sure the events of TS2 Happen no matter what the conscience(You) does to try and fuck it up.

The lawn gnomes are weeping angels
They move when you're not looking.
 * Thank you for that.

Bella was aged down.
Think about it. In an interview with Strangetown!Bella, she said that she was either aged down or Mortimer (her husband) was aged up. Looking into Alexander Goth's bio, it says he was born of older parents. Considering that Cassandra Goth is an adult, Bella and Mortimer must be getting on in years.
 * The Sims 2 takes place 50 years after The Sims 3 where she is at least 5 and probably older, so she's in her mid-fifties at least.

Kaylynn Langerak was abducted by aliens.
Think about it. Going by the above theory: Bella was abducted by aliens, check. And aged down, check. Since Kaylynn is an NPC, she can't age. So she is stuck as an adult. She was close to Mortimer's age in The Sims 3, so why wouldn't she be older? Simple: aliens abducted her, aged her down and made her an NPC. An alien did it.

We are The Sims 12
To expand on this...(and get ready for a mental mindfuck!) Think of it this way: In the original The Sims, it's pretty boring, the Sims are poor quality, and have silly toys. In The Sims 2, you can get your Sims to purchase the original The Sims and play it on their computers. If you want to be creepy, you can event zoom in so that you can watch them play The Sims (and it looks pretty similar!). Not so bad as far as mindblowing goes, but it gets better. Now look at The Sims 3. You can get your Sims to purchase The Sims 2! But, in The Sims 2, they can buy The Sims original! So, that means that your The Sims 3 Sims can play The Sims 2 and make their own Sims play the original. But we're also playing the The Sims 3!! By logical analogy, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to wonder if we're ALSO Sims, being controlled/periodically manipulated by some mysterious god-player.
 * further proof: the Sims can yell out of the game at you. Kinda like when you talk to yourself, or pray, or shout at the sky because you're angry.
 * (Also, this would totally explain why I can't keep a boyfriend around--the god-player messing with my life has decided to make me miserable and thus subtly sabotages my relationships)

Daniel Pleasant had a sex change.
Think about it. Look in their family tree and you'll see that he is on the left side of the Pleasant twins' family tree. This is where the mother is usually found, the one who gave birth to them. Obviously Daniel Pleasant was once a woman. Whether Mary Sue was a man or not is debatable. I mean, sure, they could have been made in CAS orthat could have been done with cheats, but this is much more interesting a theory.
 * Daniel Pleasant is a boy in The Sims.
 * That could be another Pleasant family, like how there are 2 Bella Goths (which could explain other inconsistencies). Alternately, Daniel was abducted by aliens.
 * Actually, that's just a glitch. Sims who are born in game (or who come from the Capp or Summerdream families) show their mother on the left; however, the other premade Sims usually show their father on the left. Mortimer Goth is on the left side of Cassandra and Alexander's family tree, as is Darren Dreamer in Dirk's family tree, and Nicolo Lothario in Don's family tree. Sims created in CAS also have their father on the left side if you create him before the mother.
 * Also, if you look at TS2 Daniel's family tree, he has the same mother, father, and sister as he did in TS 1, so you can rule out it being a different family.

Cassandra is aware of Don's pursuit of women.
Think about it: she's in deep denial. She must have heard about Don's conquests. Considering it's a (seemingly) tight-knit neighborhood, gossip must be flying all over the place. She either knows he is a flirt and hopes he will stop when they get married, or he's already decided to let him do as he wished because she loves him so much and wants him to be happy. Her mom is also a Romance Sim, so that may mean something.

This is all in Shinji Ikari's Head after The Movie
Are you drunk yet?
 * Not quite yet; I think Bella is a Time Lord. (hic)

We are all living in The Sims 5
Why 5 and not 4? This way This Troper Won't look stupid in a few years time when 4 is released.
 * Expanded theory on above troper's: we're living in the result of the Toady One getting the funding for The Sims 5.

The new Hunt interaction for vampires in The Sims 3 will be used to find Sims who have plasma that your vampire enjoys most.
Since vampires still need to befriend Sims they will feed off of, what is the point of the hunt interaction which allows you to see other Sims auras? To find tastier meals of course! Much like some vampires seem to like types of blood better in various media, vampires may enjoy or even benefit more from the plasma of a Sim with a blue aura than plasma of other Sims with a different aura. The aura vision allows you to seek out and befriend Sims who are the tastiest after you discover what preference your vampire Sims has.

What happened to Bella Goth...
She was at Don Lothario's condo, confronting him about why he made a move on her before, (she rejected him). Trying to still be friends with her soon to be son-in-law, she started stargazing, one of her many hobbies, with him. Unfortunatly for her, the Pollination Technicians were lost and accidentally abducted her rather than someone from Strangetown. Because the existence of aliens is widely known in Strangetown but not Pleasantview, the aliens decided to send her to Strangetown, a town where she would not be known, and have her memeories wiped clean. She now lives in Strangetown, trying to remember how she got there.

The Michael Bachelor Story
If you take into account the 25 years between TS3 and TS2, this means that the fit, fresh-faced "Just out of college and has no idea what to do with his life" Michael Bachelor of TS 1 is around 40-years-old. So even though TS 1 Mike looks about 20-years-old, we'll just assume he graduated later in life and aged gracefully (before dying of old age at 65). It's possible at the time of TS 1, what with the stress of being unemployed still not knowing what the hell he wants to do with his life while his baby sister was all settled and married with a kid, he started going through a midlife crisis. This is why he dyed his hair black, got a really dark tan, grey contact lenses, changed his zodiac sign, and started hanging out with younger women. MUCH younger women, considering Dina Caliente got her first kiss from him as a teenager. As for the extra dead Michael Bachelor hidden in the game files? Maybe his brother-in-law did some sort of cloning experiment.

Kaylynn Lagerak from TS2 is a different Kaylynn to TS3
The TS2 Kaylynn is actually Kaylynn Langerak Jr, the daughter of Parker Langerak from TS3, due to her resemblance to Parker's sister, Kaylynn Sr. (the Kaylyn from TS3).
 * And the young Michael Bachelor of TS1 could be Michael Bachelor Jr.! Dina could have had relationships with both of them, kissing the younger when she was a teenager and then marrying the dad when she got older. Of course, this calls into question what happened to Kaylynn I and Michael II.
 * Actually, that's impossible because only 1 Michael Bachelor is seen on the family tree in The Sims 2. With Kaylyn, it's still possible as she doesn't have a family tree because she's an NPC.
 * But the Sims 1 didn't have family trees, so that Michael could have been different from the ones in 2 and 3.
 * Actually, the absence of a Michael Bachelor Jr. from the TS2 family tree does not disprove his existence. The family trees are limited to relatives who live (or died) in the current neighbourhood, and new family members are added by the production team whenever they feel like it, such as Skip Broke suddenly having an older sister in TS3. All it really proves is that, if Michael Bachelor from TS1 was the son of the TS2/3 guy, he no longer lives in Pleasantview.

All lifespan discrepancies between games can be explained in the same way.
They drank Elixir of Life, ate Ambrosia (or just Life Fruit), or otherwise used in-game methods of life extension.

The Sims Medieval comes to fill the gap between The Sims 3 and The Sims
Allright so we'll have two timelines and three Bellas.

First we have the original!Timeline, the one from The Sims 3, where time travel is available to any Sim smart enough. As time passes from The Sims 3 to The Sims 2, scientists become aware that all the time traveling is about to cause a Temporal Collapse, but they keep it a secret and impose a ban on time traveling. One of their main concerns is that there is no known source for the time travel technology, it just seemed to have appeared, out of nowhere. Shortly before the collapse, happens the "Lothario Incident", in which who we will call original!Bella uses a time machine, an illegal one, to send Lothario to the past when he cannot be a problem for her family. In this timeline, original!Bella does not disappears. But, inadvertently along with Lothario, she sends back the technology for time travel. This closes that loop, the knowledge for time travel was sent trough time travel, from the future to the past, but this closed loop was instable and ultimately brought on the Temporal Collapse.

After the Temporal Collapse, a group of survivors, among them original!Bella, decided to fix things by going further back in time and preventing the whole mess. This is where The Sims Medieval enters the picture. The survivors traveled back to the middle ages to implant the seeds of a society that will remain under a certain technological threshold that prevents Sims from developing time travel. One of the things they do is insert religion into the world of The Sims. In no game of The Sims we see religion, but it will feature apparently in The Sims Medieval; this is done for the purposes of indoctrination against forbidden technologies.

The end result of the time travelers actions is what we will call second!timeline, the one of The Sims, where the technological level is much lower and time travel is no more. But side effects are that the Sims themselves have lost a lot of free will. Their actions are much more limited because of hundreds of years of indoctrination imposed by the survivors from original!Timeline, and their reluctance to leave home is because of events during the period of second!Timeline coming into actual existence, the period that is the alternate to The Sims 3 and we don't got to see. During that period, two timelines were fighting for existence and there where a lot of natural disasters and seemingly otherwordly occurrences, so most Sims by The Sims, besides the indoctrination of the more distant past, were raised to live in a sort of war-time economy, mostly hiding from the exterior and it's dangers. Another, weirder side effect that the Sims themselves did not noticed, is that during a long period of meta time, this is, during The Sims, time itself seems to stay still. This is due to the new timeline slowly stabilizing in meta time after the troubled events of the previous two decades and the temporal struggle. Things get better by The Sims 2 because this is the product of a fresh, stabilized timeline, and Sims have no recollections of the disasters from the struggling timelines because once second!Timelie became established, the disasters never seemed to have happened.

But, with second!Timeline established, now there is no one to travel back in time to actually originate that timeline. Not to worry, the Sims from original!Timeline thought about that, so they contacted one Sim from second!Timeline to be an agent, they told that Sim everything that had happened and that she needed to travel back in time to make this new timeline real, or else things would go back to the Temporal Collapse of original!Timeline. That Sim we will call second!Bella, whom original!Bella chose out of guilt because her actions were the trigger for the Temporal Collapse. This is the timeline where Bella mysteriously disappears, because she is the chosen one to go back in time and keep original!Timelime stable.

One odd side effect of the previously explained is that original!Timelime became littered with references to the disappearance of Bella, the references we see in The Sims 3. The fact is, those references, like the book titled "Where's Bella?" are actually folk tales from medieval times, echoes from second!timeline being established, and maybe even messages from second!Bella sent to who she thinks is her future self to prepare her for the future. The thing is second!Bella is actually sending those messages to the child original!Bella, the reason for this is that second!Bella, never having grown up with the notion of time travel like original!Bella dis, is not all too clear on the temporal mechanics of the whole thing, and is unaware her messages are ending up on a doomed timeline. This is all for the better because those messaged would have caused trouble in the more restricted second!Timeline.

The Bella we see in Strangetown on The Sims 2, who we will call Faux!Bella, is a temporal glitch, she was created during the travel of second!Bella back in time and the disappearance of original!Bella along with her timeline, in a sort of natural quantum teleportation. There was one Bella too much, and the next instant one Bella too few, so the universe tried to fix that. That is why she has no memories of being the real Bella, neither of the two real ones. This also explains the interest of the aliens in The Sims 2, they have been attracted to the Sims world because of the temporal shifts. That is also why Faux Bella has memories of having been abducted, she was taken by the aliens to be studied as she represented a living temporal anomaly.

There's a high allergy rate in Sim City.
Which is why most of the randomly computer generated Sims have HUGE LIPS.

The expansions in The Sims 2 each represent one of the aspirations.

 * University - Knowledge
 * Nightlife - Romance
 * Open For Business - Fortune
 * Pets - Family
 * Seasons - Grow Up (The whole point of the expansion is that changes happen as time passes)
 * Bon Voyage - Pleasure (It's all about doing fun things while sightseeing)
 * Free Time - Grilled Cheese (It promoted Grilled Cheese from just a joke aspiration to something that could benefit your sims' lives)
 * Apartment Life - Popularity (Living as part of a community)

Tara and Ginia Kat are the same person.

 * It's been assumed that Tara is Ginia's daughter, even though Ginia was already elderly by TS 1 and seemingly had no children. A glitch with Tara's face template causes her to age much more gracefully than other Sims. She gets grey hair and the elder skintone, but her face stays exactly the same. Clearly Ginia made a deal with some sort of wizard to restore her youth, permanently.

Seasons and University are the remaining expansions for The Sims 3.

 * They're the only aspects of The Sims 2 that haven't been touched upon yet in The Sims 3, and the absence of both is quite jarring; if there weren't a seasonal expansion planned there would at least be rain and cloudy days in the base game, and if there weren't a university expansion planned, teens wouldn't grow up and then all still live with their parents and then all have to start their careers at the very bottom.
 * Jossed, for now we're getting all the leftover Nightlife stuff that should've been in Late Night.

Bella is Italian
Or really, whatever the Sims version of Italian is. "Bella" is an Italian name, her grandmother's name is a variant of an Italian name, and she is Ambiguously Brown (it's not uncommon for someone who is of Italian descent to have an olive skin tone).

Religion no longer exists in the modern day Sims
It's very apparent in Medieval but has yet to appear in a mainstream game.
 * There's Christmas and Hanukkah stuff available in one of the Sims 2 expansion packs, and Santa Claus actually shows up if you put a plate of cookies by a Christmas tree and a fireplace and everyone's asleep by midnight. I think they were just trying to avoid controversy as much as possible. (It'd kind of interesting if you had modern-day Peteran or Jacoban Sims, along with a Sim-expy of Judaism, a Sim-expy of Islam, a Sim-expy of Buddhism, a Sim-expy of atheism...) In World Adventures you could put a Peteran cathedral in France, a Sim-Islamic temple in Egypt, and a Sim-Buddhist sanctuary in China.

the next Sims will be M-rated
Mediveal was darker than regular Sims, so this would be the only logical step. Sex, murder, religion, torture, drugs, prostitution, dictatorships, war, child abuse, and dragons will run rampant.

Child townies are all orphans
Think about it. No townies have family relationships, so a child townie must be an orphan, and when they say they need to get home, they really mean the Orphanage.

Florida is the Sims.
Seriously. That place is amazingly strange.

A despotic government took over Sim Nation between The Sims 3 and The Sims
Hence why the most advanced technologies disappear; travel outside the home is strictly regulated and no-one can privately own a vehicle; taking a single day off work will likely get you fired (and there is no maternity leave or sick leave); there are no weekends or holidays; failing school will get a kid packed off to a state-run military academy (it must be state-run, since their parents get no say in the matter); same-sex marriage is no longer recognised and only opposite-sex couples seem comfortable appearing together in public; and a Sim in the Political career can only participate at the local government level, with no opportunity to influence national policy. Obviously things were still not quite back up-to-speed yet in The Sims 2, although the political situation had clearly improved for Joe and Jane EverySim.