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Been casually reading the lore book and I'm wondering when exactly the first astral era took place? I'm really confused as to whether the first astral era happened recently enough that people from then are still alive or it happened a really long time ago and somehow our characters are blessed with potentially long lives since we can choose the first era as our birth date.
Have a look there An Eorzean Timeline. ;)
I think you're confusing the astral and umbral moons, which are months in the eorzean calendar, with astral and umbral eras, which are extensive periods of time in eorzean history.
The game allows you to choose what moon (month) your character was born in, not which era. The entirety of the playable game's history takes place during the sixth astral (1.0) and seventh umbral (ARR+) eras.
Zetsumei definitely named the #1 thing causing your confusion. Astral Moon is not equal to Astral Era; it's just that the twelve months are six cycles of astral and umbral months of the same element (months ... moonths ... moons). But, for the sake of completeness, I'd like to add that - even after you get the era / moon difference worked out (Especially in light of the Seventh Umbral Era is called the Seventh Moon on account of historic poetry!) - you probably still won't know when the First Astral Era was. The theologians say it was 20,000 years ago, the scholars say it was 1,000,000 year (or more). Except in Eorzea, evidence keeps piling up on both side of that argument (probably favoring the theologians this year, at that).