Wait, so why did the Archbishop... (SPOILERS)

[Anonymoose]

... but that seems to be more of a PR move.

The cycle of Calamities is surely concrete, but the cycle of the eras? Ehhh... Exactly where one starts and exactly where one ends seems up to the people of the time. In this cycle, the Seventh Umbral began with the Calamity itself, but would you have called B.S. if they'd called it in ten years earlier with the fall of the Keeper, appearance of the primals, arrival of the Reaper, and sounding of the Echo? Some knew then and there that Calamity was coming and moved to try to prevent / forestall it. Likewise, does it end when all foes are defeated? When the aether is in balance? When it has been X days without primal summonings or Ascian machinations?

The GC leaders seized momentum and claimed that the defeat of the XIVth Legion was proof that things weren't just going to get worse forever, that things weren't hopeless, and that any attempt to raise us up from Calamity wasn't just doomed to be undone by the next unfortunate event.

GE: So, officially, it’s the Seventh Astral Era… but there’s still… a lot of stuff going on. Who are the Grand Company Leaders that they can just be like, “Okay, it’s over, we’re done!”

MCKF: This is a very political thing. Basically, five years ago, you had half of your world destroyed because Louisoix stepped in and tried to stop things and only half stopped things. A lot of people did pass away during the calamity and their livelihood as been destroyed and they have to rebuild and go into the shroud to move felled trees and rebuild their farms and it got a lot of people down. If you look at some of the NPC dialogue, one thing we did in 2.0 was, we thought you know if my life had been destroyed I’d be all depressed, I’m just trying to rebuild things and get back on my feet. SO we’ve tried to put that kind of text into these regular NPCs. You have all these people in these nations that are very down. They had this big war with the Garleans, they won all these great battles, it was the first time in thousands of years the Grand Companies were formed and then “hey we made… DIDN’T make it” so basically the GC leaders were waiting for something good to happen and they grasped onto that and said “ok! umbral era is over mission accomplished we’re done!” to hopefully bring peoples spirits up. It’s a morale thing, you can’t have your people depressed all the time, they won’t be productive thinking “why should I farm? Another Bahamut is gonna just destroy my fields”

GE: So we have that quest line, Chronicles of a New Era.. so we ARE in a new era then?

MCKF: Yep. When they announce it, that’s it. But it’s weird because if a new player picks up the game and starts today they’re still in the Umbral Era, it’s in that time bubble.

[SOURCE]

[Allyrion]

Aren't we still in the 7th Umbral Era though? Thus far all the Umbral Eras represented an element, except for the current/7th Umbral Era? I do know that the GC leaders all claimed that we're currently in a new Astral Era in the end of 2.0... but that seems to be more of a PR move.

The cycle of Calamities is surely concrete, but the cycle of the eras? Ehhh... Exactly where one starts and exactly where one ends seems up to the people of the time. In this cycle, the Seventh Umbral began with the Calamity itself, but would you have called B.S. if they'd called it in ten years earlier with the fall of the Keeper, appearance of the primals, arrival of the Reaper, and sounding of the Echo? Some knew then and there that Calamity was coming and moved to try to prevent / forestall it. Likewise, does it end when all foes are defeated? When the aether is in balance? When it has been X days without primal summonings or Ascian machinations?

The GC leaders seized momentum and claimed that the defeat of the XIVth Legion was proof that things weren't just going to get worse forever, that things weren't hopeless, and that any attempt to raise us up from Calamity wasn't just doomed to be undone by the next unfortunate event.

Thusly, it was a totally legit PR move.