I always saw it as something like this
>>26710165but more abstract and harder to explain
Bacially there'd be three possible "set" timelines based on the way things are traded.
So you have
Possible timeline one:
A G1 game leads into a G2 game
As one universe, as there's no way to trade beyond that
Possible timeline two:
One of each version of the events fron G3 to G5
XY can't actually trade with any past games so we then get
One of each G6 pair
With Bank being some sort of multiverse highway service station, and with the virtual console G1 games supposedly using it all possible universes are connected.
I use "possible" due to Zinnia's Link Cable reference, you can take that and see every single copy of the game in the real world, every single playthrough you have of them, as being it's own universe.
The original "link cable" followed by all the other methods of trading are the only real bridges between them. Without any concrete timeline within the game's universe itself, an actual timeline only exists within an individual player's mind and experiences (Making your trading between then some kind of godlike multiverse manipulation) making there as many possible true timelines as their are copies of the games and people.
So playing a cart of Red and then a cart of Crystal, trading between them makes one timeline, but you can play the virtual console version of Red, throw a Pokemon in Bank and put it in SM and play through it with it and it's just as canon.
Then you've got Hoopa who's been transporting Pokemon from all sorts of possibilites, making it it's own "link cable". So the Raikou you can fight and capture in ORAS is part of a timeline from some kid's copy of Gold who never caught it.
