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'@skillphiliac — thank you again for creating Rocky Keyframes, though I actually needed the reverse. BUT, after exploring your logic something clicked, so it still really did help a lot!

I ended up creating a keyframe for each Unassembled and Assembled state, then made a copy of each Unassembled state piece and linked it to a counter setup so it was powered immediately when the level started. The trigger dropped the counter from One and turned off those wired keyframes, and then also started a timeline.

A quick note: I was extremely surprised that I was able to create keyframes for different items without trying as hard as I thought I would. Since I was working from an Assembled scene, the process was:
1. Place keyframe and start recording — Click Record again to record "no changes." Name this "[Thing1] On"
2. Place another keyframe to the left (to keep track of things as I work) — Make any changes needed on any level to the thing until it looks "Unassembled." Click Record again to record changes. Name "[Thing1] Off"

So moving on, the timeline consisted of the Assembled states (On) and a copy of each Unassembled state (Off), with the Unassembled state locked to the beginning frame. Because I wanted the animations to blend in a staggered timeline with keyframes after the timeline began so everything didn't happen all at once, I had to duplicate the Unassembled frame again where I wanted the transition to begin (after having some weird glitches I need to report about resizing keyframes which is very fickle at times). The final Assembled Keyframes had a "Keep State" added to them.

So basically it looked like this (= are blends):
[Thing 1] Off====[Thing 1] Off=============[Thing 1] On
[Thing 2] Off==========[Thing 2] Off==============[Thing 2] On
[Thing 3] Off=================[Thing 3] Off====================[Thing 3] Off
...............[Music, etc.]..........

It worked out great! Thank you again for your time in helping to teach!