Borderlands/WMG

Handsome Jack is..

Captain Jack Harkness. Space-roaming immortals have to get their kicks somehow. He certainly has the good looks and ego, if not the drive or selfishness.
Actually an Eridian Half-Human Hybrid who took over Pandora for a foothold for the Eridians to gain power in the galaxy and take over the world. Oh, and there's definitely more. (Trollface) See, it occurs to me: Why does anyone want Pandora? My friend postulated that people want it because it's a free license to be as sociopathic as you want, though I'm not sure I believe that-Pandora would probably have way more offworlders with better toys if that was true. And the 'why control Pandora?' question goes double now that Roland, Mordecai, Lilith, and Brick opened the vault. See, Vault-Hunting and the support of Vault-hunting seems to be a prosperous industry on Pandora, with Zed giving an air that 'oh, I've done this dozens of times' and mentioning giving the 'vault is a myth you'll get yourself killed lecture' very early. You even hear audio diaries from a Vault Hunter or three, and the fact that people refer to them as 'Vault hunters' implies that this is happens more often than not. Now that it's public knowledge that our favorite sociopathic Kleptomaniac Heroes opened it, why come? What value does it hold? Who's gonna buy your guns? So, in short, Pandora is useless. Then I thought about how Mr. Blake is made to resemble the Uncanny Valley appearance of the G-Man (Okay, maybe not, but you can't deny the G-man inspired him.) the WMG below that Hyperion is run by Eridians, their incredibly advanced tech that they do deceptively little with, and the question of how, if Atlas made its fortune on elemental tech and (allegedly) being the best, Hyperion actually has the best tech. So I came up with an even more fanwanky explanation than my previous idea of Pandora being a giant firearm testing site-Handsome Jack is an Eridian-human hybrid who took over Pandora for a foothold for the Eridians to gain power in the galaxy and take over the universe, and the Eridians will be the Big Bad of the rest of the series. Besides, if the Eridians being Abusive Precursors does not make sense to you, remember: this is Borderlands, people.

The bandit to civilian ratio would have entually figured itself out

Well, assuming that only the PCs have the luxury of using the New-U stations while out of cash, this makes a bit of sense. There aren't enough targets to go around for the bandits, that much is agreed by most people, so their gear/cash/whatever comes from killing other bandits. Each kill is acompanied by cashing themselves up, swapping out better equipment and then moving along. When the bandits run out of cash, they don't come back. Which leaves teh strongest and most cunning alive last, the real surviviors out of the bandits who kep standing or hitting back harder for every time they died, with the best weapons slowly being filtered into the elite few remaining. So, given however long that would take, the bandit numbers would drop significantly, changing them from an oncoming horde of weak fighters to a select group of top-notch radiers. And the reason you never see them infighting? If you can see them, they can see you, and a Merc wandering into their camps guarentees new loot to be added to the pool, so a temporary alliance is formed in the hopes to give them more reasons to kill each other.

There are a few quests that explicitly mention that the bandits do have means of generating income and acquiring equipment beyond robbing people. For example, one quest requires you to destroy one of their mining operations and another quest has you looking into who they are buying weapons from. Infighting is only required if they are competing over resources, but there is no indication they are really hard up for them.

The reason Pandora has all kinds of crazy guns is because they're illegal everywhere else and nobody would dream of regulating Pandora-who really cares about Pandora, anyway?

If you were in the government of the Borderlands Universe, would you want people running around with so many Impossibly Cool Guns capable of Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics that are almost certainly going to be certain kill on people who haven't inhaled the 'Pandora Mutagen' (See my WMG below) and people running around with shields that could (in theory) do the same thing to other people? On Pandora, you have your basic slugthrowers ('Justice' revolvers made by Dahl and Jakobs, arguably Mashers, Combat Rifles, Jakobs guns, and a myriad of others. I don't want to list them, for that would break the wiki. Just see here.) but you also have ungodly powerful versions of those same guns that could probably reduce the average person to a fine red mist, (Mashers, the average Jakobs sniper before you find a better gun, and explosive handheld weapons of the rifle or shotgun variety. Or explosive Mashers.) guns that shoot really powerful acid and leave almost no trace of the enemy, (The Pestilent Defiler revolver is one of the most well known pistols that does this.) light people on fire, electrocute them, pistols and shotguns that shoot rockets and grenades, pistols that have 80 highly corrosive rounds in them somehow, a shotgun that shoots waves of energy that can cut through things, (TK's wave. It's not all that effective though) grenades that suck up shields in whirl winds and heal you in the process, an SMG that shoots spiralling bullets that can bounce off walls, (Violent SMG) a shotgun that shoots rockets in six round bursts, an alien flamethrowing shotgun, an SMG that shoots shotgun shells or more accurately four bullets at once out the same barrel, a gun that makes the enemy explode if you lock on to him for three seconds (kind of like the Hammer Of Dawn in principle) and that's not even considering the grenades weaponization capabilities of shields, and teleporters. I realize it could conceivably sound like I made up some of the weirder bits of Gun Porn here, but it's that kind of game and there's probably even weirder weapons.

It would be an absolute gorram nightmare to have the average citizen get ahold of most of these guns. No one, however, cares about Pandora except maybe the Crimson Lance, so companies like Jakobs, Dahl, Hyperion, and Atlas saw fit to move much of their manufacturing to Pandora where no-one would stick their noses where they don't belong and realize that the companies were putting artillery pieces in handheld form, thus making more money and having fun testing the limit of their utterly-insane-as-Tannis guns. As a result, Maliwan, Torgue, and other companies decided to get in on the action of Pandora and use it as a testing ground for their guns. I just realized that explains why there are all kinds of 'prototype' Maliwan guns lying around. As to how companies (Cough...Maliwan! Cough...) with heavy reliance on Elemental Tech get by, presumably they sell guns with weakened versions of the elemental effects.

There's a mutagen in the air that makes Pandorans more able to survive bullets and rockets, Pandora is a Penal Colony, and the creatures there are artificially created guards.

As you go through Pandora, your enemies will (hopefully) get stronger, able to challenge your newer, shiner, kick-assier gun, leading you to get more gun. It's just not natural that they could do that, and that the average person could survive getting hit with a rocket or a Jakobs gun and get back up. Now, going on the theory that Pandora is a Penal Colony the Eridians knew their prisoners would soon get stronger than the guard creatures they created, so they made a mutagen in the air that would make Skags, Spiderants, Rakk, Crabworms, Drifters, and Scythids stronger and able to deal elemental damage or shoot energy blasts (Seriously, why can Moe, Marley, and crabworms shoot the purple Eridian energy?). This is supported by how Ernest Whitting claims in the quest where you kill Skagzilla that it mutated as a result of exposure to oil and human consumption.

Sometime after the Eridians died out, the virus mutated so it affected humans as well. If the virus keeps mutating so the humans have the same deadly abilities as the aforementioned guard creatures, the Borderlands government (mentioned in WMG above this) will have to declare Exterminatus. No, that does not mean that I think Warhammer 40k is in the same timeline as Borderlands.

Steele is the person all four are looking for.

Since she is a CR officer, she could well be the nemesis of Roland and Mordecai, as they never met in person. Her look passes por a siren and "Brick Steele" is one of the Names To Run Away Pretty Fast. Honestly. I believe there will be a relevation.

Borderlands is the Future of the Left 4 Dead universe.

During the ZA, a bunch of small merc groups were formed. These groups started making guns, becoming the weapons developers in Borderlands. After the zombies were cleaned up, they started colonizing other planets. Dr. Ned's zombies were from working with the old Green Flu. They also used DNA splicing taking advantage of some of the mutations caused by the GF. Brick has some Tank DNA. Also, the main 4 are related to the Left 4 Dead main 4. Roland - Louis, Brick - Francis, Mordecai - Bill, Lilith - Zoey.

The bandits use the spawn points.

You know, you'd think that after killing enough people to populate a large town, you'd start to see a slight dip in the bandit population. Since you don't, it isn't too insane to think that, while you're back is turned, they just respawn somewhere on the map at one of the spawn points. In fact, many of the bosses can be killed more than once, further supporting this.

- Confirmed. In fact, everyone uses them - as long as they have enough money.

All of the playable characters know each other from childhood.

Strictly a guess from the opening video, in which we see a young Mordecai with a slingshot in the same tree as a young Lilith with a bubble wand. It's kind of out of frame in each shot, but you can juuust make out Roland in his tin-pan armor at the base of the tree; you also see his foot off to the left when we see Brick with the dog and labeled boxing glove. Maybe they're friends, maybe they're related, who knows?

We'll never know for sure, since what little backstory the game originally had for the characters was dropped early in preproduction and is briefly mentioned in the guidebook, probably so that the developers could sell sequels.
This troper assumed that the whole reason the group was working together was that they were all childhood friends.

The Destroyer is an Eldritch Abomination.

She is Cthulhu's girlfriend. You just pissed off Cthulhu.

The Destroyer is a necromorph

Self explanatory, really.

Midjets are really Child Soldiers

They just call'em midjets so you can sleep at night.

Jossed by multiple sources, most notably the official game guide. They're created by torturing their pregnant mothers. And really, these guys sleep at night just fine. Except Brick. Brick doesn't need sleep.

The Vault was not built to contain the Destroyer

The Destroyer was actually placed into the vault to act as a guard if anyone managed to open it. If the vault hunters had kept looking after killing it, they might have found the real contents of the vault.

Alternatively, another group of treasure hunters have already gotten past the Destroyer and raided the vault. The damn thing just respawned, and the previous group quietly sold off the collection of Eridian knick-knacks on the black market.

The Eridians were a peaceful society with a badly atrophied military

Four points to consider here: Firstly, four vault hunters were able to defeat a creature that apparently wiped out most of the Eridian civilization. Secondly, the last few levels are some of the easiest in the game, to the extent that many players regularly farm the guardians. Thirdly, although the Atlas corporation became the market leader by copying Eridian technology, all their weapons appear to use human designs. Finally, Eridian guns, though technically impressive, are totally impractical as actual weapons, with designs that suggest they were largely ceremonial rather than practical. The obvious conclusion is that the Eridians, despite having advanced civilian technology, had not fought any wars in a very long time and had lost much of the neccesary knowledge.

Brick is a siren

Sirens are people who have gained superhuman abilities due to alien technology. Berserk certainly seems like a superhuman power, and considering Brick upgrades it with Eridian artifacts, "caused by alien technology" doesn't seem like much of a stretch.

Marcus Kincaid made the entire story up, and the game is simply the players acting out a series of bedtime stories he's telling to his kids

The opening cutscene involves Marcus responding to a request from someone to tell them a story about treasure hunters. At no point in the following cutscene does he mention that the story he's telling is actually true, and considering the number of times he randomly appears it's not implausible that he either made it up out of whole cloth or took a mostly true story and then added his own embellishments. This would also explain the ludicrous amount of Gun Porn in the game - Marcus is an arms dealer and gun nut, and just the sort of person who would work loving, detailed descriptions of his many, many guns into the story.

- Even more obvious in Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, where Marcus really begins to phone it in.
- Possible alternate--Marcus Kincaid isn't telling the story to "his" kids, he's telling it to a group of kids...the same kids we see in the opening cutscene, i.e. the Roland, Brick, Mordecai and Lilith we know from the game. What follows are the fantasies of this "Vault Hunters' Club", as they imagine themselves all grown up and very very butt-kicking. The reason the only friendlies on the planet appear to be Dr. Zed, Kincaid, Tannis (arguable), Pierce, T.K. Baha, Scooter, Crazy Earl and a bunch of faceless types in New Haven is because they're based on people the kids know from real life--Kincaid is a gun nut, Tannis and Earl are probably based on two figures everybody in town believe are crazy, and so on. The enemies are all wild animals or faceless because they don't want to think about the idea of watching someone else die horribly. The Claptraps are there because...well, they're kids, one of them is gonna want something cute to break up the action.
- Another possible alternate-- Marcus told the kid Vault Hunters about the vault, and the entire game is just their play-pretend as they go to find it. Roland threw in the idea of bandits as enemies, Mordecai the animal ones, and Lilith, being the girl, wanted Claptrap as the cute-offset. Brick? He's just happy to pretend to hurt things. Moreover, the guns effects are kids applying Rule of Cool to weapons fire.
  - That would explain why the characters are introduced as though they are given a role. Ex. Roland "as" The Soldier instead of Roland The Soldier. They are acting as the main characters of the story.
- Another alternate-- It is fairly obvious that Marcus is telling this as a story, but he does swear it is true. Furthermore, he appears to be telling this story on Pandora ("...and it happened 'right here', on Pandora"), so at least we know that exists. The main characters are essentially acting out his story, hence the captions in the intro, with the exception of Brick, introduced "as himself", possibly the only surviving member of the original group, or at least the only one available.
This theory got a big shot in the arm by the Claptrap DLC, as Marcus once again narrates the intro (and is criticised for his crappy metaphor), as well as the (short) epilogue. However, during the course of events in-game, he gets shot in the back by INAC. And pulls off a comedic one-liner before dying. But then after you win, he wraps up the story.
- Marcus survived the attack. Claptrap wasn't using a Jakobs.
  - In anyone other than the PCs uses a New-U station, it would be Marcus.

Hyperion Corporation was founded by Eridians

Despite Atlas holding the lion's share of control over the planet, the fast travel system is still Hyperion make, as is Catch-A-Ride (and by extension, presumably, the Runners). That's an awful lot of fully functional Hyperion technology to be sitting around on a planet effectively owned by a competing company, which means that more than likely, Hyperion had a dominant presence on that planet long before Atlas's rise to power. More tellingly, Hyperion-made technology is MUCH more advanced than anything with any other company's brand on it. Reverse-engineering could explain their technological superiority, but why then isn't Atlas at the same level? Sure, Atlas is a head above (most of) the competition, but they still rely on Hyperion tech for teleportation. So where did their technology come from?

Hyperion Satellite 4N631, orbiting Pandora, is all but said to be the home of the Guardian Angel, or equally possibly, it IS the Guardian Angel. Think about the implications -- a satellite created and maintained by Hyperion knew a lot of suspiciously specific information about the Vault, particularly that the Destroyer was in the vault. I highly doubt that satellite got that information from taking photos -- so more than likely Hyperion had that information on hand while producing or maintaining the satellite. Catch that? Hyperion KNEW the Destroyer was in the Vault the whole time. The entire plot is a Xanatos Gambit orchestrated by Hyperion Corporation and the GA was built just for the occasion. But how did they know about the destroyer, the vault keys and how to open the vault?

The answer is simple. Eridians themselves played a fundamental role in the foundation of Hyperion Corporation. They brought their technology and knowledge on board and warned about the dangers of the vault. Some mistranslations early on started the rumors, which spread outside the company and across the wastes. It's completely possible that a few Eridians are alive and well, hidden within the confines of a Hyperion corporate building or space station.

- Or Mr. Blake is an Eridian. He does seem to be made to resemble The G-man.

Borderlands is the Bad Future of the BioShock (series) universe.

Instead of genetic engineering, Fontaine dumps all his money into weapons development with the Atlas Corporation. Rapture quickly overwhelms the collectivist-ish civilizations on the surface with their acid-guns. By the turn of the century, humanity is out exploring the stars. By the time Pandora is discovered, the only real forms of government that humanity has had for generations are a few huge Mega Corporations.

Moxxi is Brick's sister.

Same color eyes, hair. Both seem to enjoy killing. Side material mentions Brick came to Pandora looking for his sister...

Side note on that: If one also goes with the game being imagined by a bunch of children, Moxxi is Bricks Cool Big Sis, which Mordecai and/or Roland has a crush on, hence the over sized breasts.

In that case, this makes Scooter Brick's nephew.
- Which kinda makes sense that he's not in the story more. He lives further away and can't come over to play as often.
- I always thought Moxxi was related to Tannis... somehow.
Jossed in the Mad Moxxi's Underdome DLC. Moxxi will occasionally make a comment about how Brick fights like his mother. Now Moxxi is a bit crazy seeing as she lives on Pandora, is the owner/ringmistress of the Underdome, and asked you to kill Mr.Shank (Her Ex, but he's a psycho so I'll let that slide) in the third DLC. YMMV on this, but I don't think she'd let her own mother fight in the Underdome, and if she did, she's the type of person that would tell her brother that information.
- I disagree. Moxxi is EXACTLY the type of person that would let her mother fight in the Underdome, especially considering it has New-U machines.
  - then why didn't Moxxi say "our mother?"

Borderlands is the end of the Avatar series of movies.

Hypothetically, let's say that the sequel to Avatar features an all-out war between the humans and the Na'Vi, rather than a small merc company. The Na'vi lose, reduced to a small number of laborers. Humans take over the planet Pandora and strip mine it, creating awesome technology, and not caring that the Planet itself has cut them off from the rest of humanity. The Na'Vi, (now Eridians) steal the awesometech and attempt to fight back again, the planet creating the Destroyer to help them. The humans barely manage to seal the Destroyer away before they are destroyed utterly.

200 years pass, and Borderlands takes place. And later on, a reluctant Alphonso Knoxx returns to the planet that defeated his ancestor, Miles Quaritch, despite his wishes and soon devolves into suicidal depression.

There are problems with that theory, it is expressly said multiple times in-game that the Eridians sealed away The Destroyer, and the Guardian Angel says it isn't from the same dimension the player is in, so they could not have created it. Let alone the facts that the Na'vi couldn't evolve into Eridians in 200 years, the Na'vi learned English, were building out of anything BUT stone- which is what the Eridians ruins were built with- and the animals look nothing alike. Even animals that evolved from other animals have some similar traits. Prehistoric raptors and birds both have hollow bones, for example.

Borderlands is before the fall of Eldar.

It takes place during the Dark Age of Technology. Eridians are not extinct. They are eldar and are just not on the planet anymore. Furthermore

Lilith is a psyker.
Brick is a really intelligent orgyn.
The Destroyer is a daemon.
Guardians are wraithguards without a warlock.
The bandits are mutated orks that look more human and they have lost their gestalt psychic field and can only produce mutated orks (no oddboyz) and mutated gretchin (midgets).
Devastator armor is later recovered and made into Mark IV Astartes armor.
Claptraps became the Iron Men.

The planet Pandora in Borderlands has the moon Pandora from Avatar orbiting it.

One of the diaries you collect explains that the planet has a daytime rotation of 90 hours, yet in game play it's night time much quicker than that, which isn't a mistake, it's real time game play. The moon orbits the planet very quickly, causing regular solar eclipses, causing the illusion of night time. This also makes sense in that most people can beat the storyline in less than 90 game play hours.
- It's mentioned in Tannis's first journal entry that the side of the planet you're on is permanently night-time, and the day-time is caused by the moon's high albedo reflecting the sun's light onto the planet. On the other side of the planet, your WMG still stands.
This also fits into the Avatar universe as the military is already present on the moon Pandora. They've been making under-the-table dealings to create better weapons on the planet to wipe out the Na'vi, turning it into a planet of advanced military weapons testing.
- If that's true, the Na'vi are gonna get their asses kicked so damn hard. Just ask Vera here.
...except that Avatar's Pandora actually orbits a gas giant known as Polyphemus. Clearly visible in several scenes in the movie.

The entirty of the Zombie Island DLC was just a collaboration between Zed and the Vault Hunters to film a movie

Think about it. It was a story being passed down, there was kind of a movie plot going on, and since the New U machines can bring people back from the dead, all of it could have all been an elaborate attempt to film a movie.

Vladof is related to Izhmash

Think about it: what are both companies known for? Vladof makes guns that are easy to use and take care of. Izhmash makes the Kalashnikov series. Further reinforced by the fact that Vladof weapons tend to be not particularly accurate, but extremely easy to use (and presumably also maintain). While in good hands, the AK-47 can rival semiautomatic rifles, most terrorists and freedom fighters probably will use full auto. The orange/brown finish with gray/white accents parallels the use of wood in the foregrip and stock of early model AK's, and the Eastern European/Russian name theme only makes it obvious.

The entire game is a live-action story(like, a play) and Pandora is the stage

Basically combining the theories of it being a bedtime story and Zombie Island being a movie, along with the fact that Pandora as a whole loops at least twice. Consider:
- New-U stations can bring people back to life. All those bandits and everything that get killed are actually dieing, but they come back just fine. This also allows for less people to be used, as one bandit can play the part of many instances of seeing a bandit.
- The guardian angel knows what is supposed to happen for most of the game(that part where she says it wasn't supposed to happen is drama). It's easy to tell the future when you wrote the script.
- Ideally, the Vault Hunters don't ever die throughout the story, which can be accomplished easily enough once one knows the game. This is because they are the heroes, and heroes never die(even if there's an arbitrary not-dieing-machine pre-built into the story).
- Whoever is putting on this show has a lot of resources, as they are controlling a large portion of a planet(if not all of it, at least enough to ensure isolation from normal).

The events of the game really did happen, but the main game and DLC are being retold with various levels of accuracy.

The main game and the Zombie Island DLC have narrations by Marcus being told as stories to kids. Basically the "main" game becomes a legend that repeats more or less every 200 years (in keeping with the "2 and 2.5 playthroughs are the result of a time loop" theory). The Zombie Island DLC was an event which occurred in the then current iteration of the loop which Marcus told as a Halloween story. The Mad Moxxie DLC was the Vault Hunters taking part in some gladiatorial games to capitalise on their fame from becoming legendary heroes (and was being broadcast as a reality TV show or something). Finally, hearing of their fame, Athena contacted them to help fight their mutual enemy; the Atlas corporation. That part of the game is them fighting for survival after the well known part of their story happens and is thus "real" (rather than being a story). The Robot Rebellion DLC will flip the other way and be the result of them helping make a PSA on why Claptrap abuse is wrong and thus completely fictional.

The Gardian Angel becomes Claptrap Ninja Assasin

The Signal that transforms Claptrap into a "Ninja Assasin" came from the GA's satalite. Also, she is fond of the other Claptraps, thus why she's making a Roborevolution in the new DLC.

One of the bosses of the roborevolution DLC will be a Claptrap Combining Mecha.

One claptrap for each limp, one for the body, and the ninja assassin claptrap for the head.

Jossed, though there is a Mega Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap, which is just a really big war vehicle that the Claptrap commandeers.

Borderlands II will take place on Pandora.

Somehow they will hammer in Borderlands into the Avatar continuity and the Vault Hunters will migrate to Avatar's Pandora after picking their Pandora clean. The player can either side with the Navi or obliterate them, depending on their opinion of the movie.

Mad Moxxi is not really Scooter's mom

Mad Moxxi is actually Scooter's stepmother. He just thinks Mad Moxxi is his mom due to seeing her around his father occasionally, or alternatively, because she is his father's current wife. In reality, unbeknownst to himself, Scooter might possibly be the same age or older than Mad Moxxi.

Mad Moxxi isn't currently married.
Scooter doesn't look old if you actually look at him, he's just dirty. Due to the art style, the dirt slightly over emphasizes the lines on his face.
Mad Moxxi explicitly calls Scooter her son.

Borderlands is the distant past of the Killzone universe

The Crimson Lance eventually settled on the Death World of Pandora, made it their own, caused the planet to become even more toxic, and became the Helghast.

Borderlands is the far future of Mamoru Oshii's Kerberos Saga

The fast-food grifters and other crazy people became the main space colonists. The Kerberos unit grew to become the Atlas corporation, taking their Greek mythology theme-naming to the next level.

Marcus Kincaid is the Heavy

Sure he doesn't have a medic to accompany him, nor was Marcus bald, but Marcus is a weapons affacianado, as is the Heavy. Also, when you get to the vending machines, it may sound like Marcus was saying "boolits".

Relatedly, Dr. Zed could also be the Medic. He did lose his medical license after all...

The Guardian Angel is the game's main antagonist

The Guardian Angel has secretly been the game's main antagonist all along. She's actually trapped inside of the Vault, and has been giving you visions and such to help goad you into opening the Vault and releasing her. She's trapped inside because she caused a massive apocalypse on Pandora, mutating the sentient beings into Rakks and Skags and such. The only reason she singled out the protagonist was because they were on Pandora to open the Vault in the first place.

Pandora was always a desolate, nearly uninhabitable wasteland. That's the whole reason the Vault was located there in the first place. They wanted a planet that was less likely to be disturbed. If the rumors of the Vault hadn't gotten around, Pandora would probably be uninhabited.

Pandora used to be where The Elder Scrolls games were set

My only evidence is that the second I saw and then fought a Rakk, I was reminded of Cliff Racers. That's all the evidence I need, as far as I'm concerned.

Krawmerax the Invincible is trapped on that Plataeu.

It doesn't seem to be trying to go anywhere else, despite burrowing abilities.

Krawmerax is taking random form.

Note, the person who gave you that quest to fight him says he was totally making it up. Krawmerax is really some kind of mental Eldritch Abomination that simply took the form that the mission giver was thinking of.
- It's able to constantly regenerate even instantly after leaving it's lair because all the New U stations are weakening the spiritual barriers.

Avatar, Left 4 Dead, and Borderlands are all the same universe, but none take place on earth.

Imagine the left 4 dead scenario above along with both Pandoras being the same. In Avatar they were in Cryo for 6 years. There is no planet that close to earth. You would need to use light speed, and according to the theory of relativity, time would be stopped and you wouldn't age. Thus no need for cryo. Therefore they cannot have taken off from Earth. Also, not once in the movie did humans state they were from earth.

The Hyperion Satellite at the end of the game is a red herring.

There is no actual evidence that Hyperion should have any more knowledge of the vault than Atlas. It's quite possible the Guardian Angel simply hijacked a satellite that happened to be owned by Hyperion.

Steve is Moxxi's second husband, and Scooter's father.

Moxxi was lying/joking when she said Shank was her second husband. In the intro to MMUR, she mentions "Breaking her toy", followed by a picture of Steve shouting his catchphrase before being crushed. and in the base game, scooter will occasionally comment that his father is wheelchair-bound. At some point, Moxxi crippled her second husband/father of her child, and they ended up separated.

The people of Pandora will eventually evolve in the Orks.

Both societies are based around the need to get more dakka.

The characters you can play as in Borderlands 2 are the children Marcus was narrating to in the original.

They're following in their idols' footsteps.

They can't really be children then because there is only a couple year time lapse between Borderlands and Borderlands 2. They would have to be at least 15 or so when the events of Borderlands was taking place.

The four original Vault Hunters will be bonus playable characters in Borderlands 2

Perhaps as a bonus for completing the game will unlock the original characters, or they'll become available as DLC. And, since it's Borderlands, the game will NOT change if one of the Vault Hunters is selected as a character. So, theoretically, we'll see Roland's good buddy Roland coming to rescue Roland after he gets captured and this will not be treated as odd, just like if one of the new characters was selected for play.

Except Gearbox has explicitly said the original characters are NPCs and will not be unlockable, secret, or DLC characters. The reason they aren't available is because they wanted to overhaul the characters, but they didn't want to do so by changing the capabilities of the original characters. For example, Gunzerker was designed to perform the same role as Berserker, without the flaws that made Brick generally considered to be the worst character in the game.

The orphan child Marcus is narrating 'The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned' to is Tiny Tina.

Eh, why not?