Lore Timeline?

[Nefiiria]

I feel like people who use the "time bubble" theory are taking it too broadly. Clearly there are events that have happened, and therefore time must unfold in that space. You can put things in a bubble or sort of suspend quests and locations to certain points in time, but you cannot assume that the events between ARR and Shadowbringers have only been a short amount of time.

What I like to do is separate the expansions into about a year's worth of "events." Which seems to be the most likely case. Maybe ARR was a short amount of time, but you cannot tell me that between the end of ARR and the end of Seventh Astral Era, that at least half a year hasn't gone by. This stuff takes time to set up. You think the Crystal Braves were set up in a day? A week? A month? Please, recruiting an army takes several months, at best. Even with Alphinaud tirelessly finding new members.

By my standing, about three years have passed since the introduction of ARR up until the end of Stormblood. That leaves plenty of space for your character to have done all the MSQ stuff and run through all the side quest, raid, and expeditionary(24-man) content. The way that the characters talk, they make it clear that we don't really use the aetheryte crystals all that much, if at all. Most content seems to be "walk" to this place, not "teleport."

If you really want to assume that an absurdly short amount of time or absolutely no time has passed between the events of ARR and Stormblood, I mean of course you are free to do so. And I'm not saying we should even follow the calendar events of the world. But honestly it's not a very interesting topic to just assume that everything is episodic or that everyone's stuck in a time bubble. That just makes it seem like no one can grow as characters, which they all clearly have.

The time bubble theory could be applied per expansion, where all events and side quests do go in a sequential order, the MSQ being the only thing you have to rigidly stick to in order to see events afterwards, but I don't think you could reasonably make an argument where both Gaius van Baelsar was both just defeated in the Praetorium and is also seeking to slay the Ascians while wandering through the Burn. The devs are busy actually making the game, leave them out of it, you should be able to make your own conclusions to how long the timeline is so far.

[Brightamethyst]

I feel like people who use the "time bubble" theory are taking it too broadly. Clearly there are events that have happened, and therefore time must unfold in that space. You can put things in a bubble or sort of suspend quests and locations to certain points in time, but you cannot assume that the events between ARR and Shadowbringers have only been a short amount of time.

That's not how the time bubble works here. Time is still passing and the story is still being told in order. The time bubble is just keeping the calendar from moving. It's why Aphinaud is still 16 and the Calamity is still "5 years ago" and such despite 4-6 years worth of events having happened since the beginning of 2.0.

[Jaywalker]

It's why Aphinaud is still 16 and the Calamity is still "5 years ago" and such despite 4-6 years worth of events having happened since the beginning of 2.0.

Then again we can also go devil's advocate to argue that we've got no idea how elezen age and/or he could be a late bloomer.

[Iscah]

Then again we can also go devil's advocate to argue that we've got no idea how elezen age and/or he could be a late bloomer.

We do know that actually, from the lorebook - they're slow to hit puberty (as their whole lifespan is 10-20% longer than average) and overtake Hyuran height around age 20.

That doesn't explain the "always five years since the Calamity" thing, or twenty since the fall of Ala Mhigo whether you're in ARR or Stormblood.

[Jaywalker]

We do know that actually, from the lorebook - they're slow to hit puberty (as their whole lifespan is 10-20% longer than average) and overtake Hyuran height around age 20.

That doesn't explain the "always five years since the Calamity" thing, or twenty since the fall of Ala Mhigo whether you're in ARR or Stormblood.

Whoop didn't hit that part of the lorebook yet, but fair point!

Five years since the Calamity/20 years since the fall of Ala Mhigo remains weird agreed. Twenty I could see rounding/figurative language involved maybe but five is too low a number for me to buy that.

[Seraphor]

Whoop didn't hit that part of the lorebook yet, but fair point!

Five years since the Calamity/20 years since the fall of Ala Mhigo remains weird agreed. Twenty I could see rounding/figurative language involved maybe but five is too low a number for me to buy that.

Simple, the entire plotline of ARR right through to whatever 6.0 or 7.0 is called, will always fit neatly into a time period of less than a year.

[Iscah]

Simple, the entire plotline of ARR right through to whatever 6.0 or 7.0 is called, will always fit neatly into a time period of less than a year.

True, but at the same time those events might have (and logically should have) taken longer. We might have spent a year in the events of ARR, a month hiding out at Dragonhead waiting to get in to Ishgard, three months travelling to Dravania, another two to resolve Heavensward, at least a month at sea traveling to Othard.... and still fit all of that and all our future travels into the space of a year.

It's time-bending logic. The bubble doesn't mean that everything happens simulaneously - there's a sequence to the events that happen in it, but that sequence of events can take longer than the amount of time that the bubble occupies on a broader timeline.

[Jaywalker]

Simple, the entire plotline of ARR right through to whatever 6.0 or 7.0 is called, will always fit neatly into a time period of less than a year.

I mean theoretically lol, but the pacing logistics of that seem a bit poop and would require Eorzean travel time on foot/boat/etc. to be so negligible that it raises weird questions about the rest of the lore. Not to mention character development and dynamics. XD Tbh we could also raise questions about how a billion days and nights pass as we're playing but no months turnover or anything. Are we just living a groundhog day-esque loop?

No one has to agree with me, but I'm personally just gonna plant my hand on the table so to speak and say it's comic book logic at work. We can probably adhere or ignore this bit of info because it's bizarre and doesn't entirely make sense.

[Nefiiria]

That's not how the time bubble works here. Time is still passing and the story is still being told in order. The time bubble is just keeping the calendar from moving. It's why Aphinaud is still 16 and the Calamity is still "5 years ago" and such despite 4-6 years worth of events having happened since the beginning of 2.0.

I don't like the idea of this time bubble. Like I said in my last paragraph, it makes absolutely no sense how time could be "stopped" when events clearly have happened. You can't say Gaius got his ass kicked, spent no time thinking about what he was going to do to get revenge on the Ascians, and then spent no time gathering like-minded folk to help him in his cause, and then spent no time getting to the Burn. Time has obviously passed. Screw the calendar year, we all know the game doesn't run on our depiction of time gone by. But you can still say that on a per-person basis, time has passed. If I go do MSQ's 1-25 and then go back and do side quest 1, side quest 1 is more in line with MSQ 1. Likewise, if I'm on MSQ 500 and I go back and do side quest heavensward pre-nidhogg slain and they talk about the dangers of nidhogg, I'm assuming the quest is part of that era. Not a part of the current event the MSQ is on.

[ObsidianFire]

I don't like the idea of this time bubble. Like I said in my last paragraph, it makes absolutely no sense how time could be "stopped" when events clearly have happened.

Time is not "frozen" like you are implying. Events in the story still happen in order. The game just never records how much time has passed between events. That is left entirely up to the player.

It all goes along with how the FFXIV team wants to let everyone experience the story in their own way. For some people it takes less then a year, for other people it takes a year per expansion; for some people it takes five years, for some people it takes ten years... The game devs really don't care about that.

They do care about having a consistent date to use as a reference point though and that is "five years after the 7th Umbral Calamity". Anytime you see something along the lines of "x event happened y years ago", we as players know that means "x event happened y years ago in relation to the 7th Umbral Calamity".