Board Thread:Fanon Canon/@comment-2089817-20151116044304/@comment-2089817-20151116233304

Warring Souls Period and Heiwa Period, basically, was the foundation of my perspective on it. These two time periods are separated by a major shift in the Soul Society that is canon, and that is the aftermath of the Quincy Blood War. As Yhwach said, "But that all changed when you exterminated the Quincy. You had won for yourselves a world of peace, having found things that you desired to protect." And he would also say, "The Gotei 13 died with us, a thousand years ago." This led me to conclude that the Soul Society underwent a huge change in eras prior to the Quincy war and after the Quincy war, with respect to how the Gotei 13 itself changed.

Furthermore, I have a theory that the Gotei 13's ranks, or rather, the number of divisions, is merely coincidental. I don't think Yamamoto originally decided upon 13 Captains, but as his "gang" grew larger, the organization expanded too. In this sense, I believe the numbering system of the Gotei 13 is chronological. I think the reason the Onmitsukido is aligned with the Second Division is because Yamamoto may have initially forged an alliance with the Shihoin Clan, which, by far, was most likely always one of the wealthiest and most powerful clans in Soul Society. If this is true, the founding 2nd Division Captain was most likely a Shihoin, and the one who unified the Gotei 13 and Onmitsukido; the latter of whom probably existed for many years prior to the Gotei's birth, as a private organization that served the Shihoin. If we follow this paradigm, this actually clarifies a couple things. In terms of my own history, in which Sei and Raian grouped together other Rukongai survivors and organized them into a makeshift fighting force that worked together in order to survive, they would have had their struggle with Yamamoto for a brief time. Them against Yamamoto and his... 4 or 5 Captains at the time. When Sei and Raian eventually were integrated into the Gotei 13, this is what added the "8th Division" and "10th Division" to the ranks. This suggests that there were only roughly 7 Divisions at this point in time. Then let's go further, and look at an actual canon situation. If the divisions are chronological, this means Unohana, as the acclaimed founder of the 11th Division, did not join hands with Yamamoto until there were already nine other Captains following him. This makes sense because Unohana was considered "the most vile and unprecedented villain in Soul Society" before she joined the Gotei. It only makes sense that if Unohana could actually hold off 10 founding Captains, which whatever gang followed her (I'm sure there was, in a similar way as Grimmjow has a gang of his own), this added to her threat level and established her as a real threat. At that point in time, Yamamoto would've had 10 Divisions, and Unohana joining the ranks led to the addition of the "11th Division".

What we also know as an absolute, via canon, is that there was a period in Soul Society's history that was chaotic due to the traffic of souls. We will need to define the characteristics of this time in order to have a good handle on what Soul Society's history was like.