Hey so is there somebody who has a really good understanding of how the DA timeline/calendar works in a yearly sense for the ages? The Divine age is listed as started in 1:1 Divine; yet all the later ages are listed as starting in x:00? What I want to know is there actually a source that states the Ages as starting in, for example, 8:00 Blessed, rather than the Blessed Age starting in 8:1?
See I'm wondering if it's an inconsistency because the only date I can find beginning with a 0 for an Age in 9:00 Dragon the mistaken year given for when Maric killed Mehgren and kicked out the Orlesians from Ferelden. However, World of Thedas 2 corrected the date to be 9:2 Dragon.
There's also the commonality of, for example, Brother Genitivi's codexes which say "In the thirtieth year of the Dragon Age (or the blessed age, etc)" and if the Ages began with 0, how would this be written in a way that makes sense? "In the zeroith year???"
Any help would be appreciated! HouseofAustrich 04:00, September 16, 2017 (UTC)
- Towers Age, Black Age and Dragon Age (time period) have all events that took place in :00 year. As for making sense, it does not since they should had either started the timeline in 1:00 Divine or started every Age from X:01. However that's the official lore, which we cannot but follow.
10:49, September 16, 2017 (UTC)
- Think of it as Anno Domini, i.e. the system most of the world uses. There was no 0 AD, -1BC went into 1 AD. When we reached 9 AD, we didn't skip to 11 AD, but simply 10 AD. So 1:1 Divine was the first year, and it lasted 99 years. Then every age following that lasted 100 years, starting at 0 and ending at 99. The confusion comes from there not being a year 100. Imagine the calendar as a 2-digit meter system that simply cannot go over 99, so instead of creating three digits, it just goes back to 0.
- As for writing it down, I think it would simply be "year zero", although a "zeroth" (0th) is also correct. As for Genitivi saying something like "the thirtieth year", I am afraid I don't remember any codex entries like that. Could you link one up, please? I think if he is indeed referring to 9:30 by saying "thirtieth" we can assume that he means 30, and not the actual 30th year, which would be 9:29.
henioo (da talk page) 11:10, September 16, 2017 (UTC)
The Genitivi codex I'm refering to is this one Codex entry: Thedas Calendar
Reading it now though, I'm thinking that maybe my reading comprehension is off.
Also so what you're saying is essentially the Ages are each 100, but the new Age technically starts on the first year of the new age (ex: 8:1) rather than the zero (8:00) as the last year of the previous age is drawn out?
( HouseofAustrich 16:41, September 17, 2017 (UTC))
- Interesting. It looks like this codex entry was not thoroughly checked before release. For one, it states that it is 9:30, and yet it was written in 9:25. The official lore is as stated above by me (i.e. 100 years ages starting at 0 and ending at 99, with the exception of the first age), but it seems it was not always the case and sometime during production BioWare changed the way they count years. Because clearly from that codex entry Genitivi means 9:30 is the 30th year, not 29th, and that the next age is named in the 99th year, not year 99. henioo (da talk page) 21:41, September 17, 2017 (UTC)