Are we in the 8th Umbral Era?

[Necrotica]

Aside from the Scions and a few others in the know, most people do not know that a Calamity is when a shard is rejoined to the source. All they know is massive event occurs around the world causing death and destruction.

So would the calendar makers of Hydaelyn (since most people do not know it was called Etheirys and would still call it that) mark the Final Days as a Calamity and declare the 8th Umbral Era as having started?

[Beytran70]

Well, the last time there was a huge cutscene and the Alliance leaders made the decision, so unless we get another one of those I don't think so.

[Sauteed]

Would be neat

[SilverArrow20XX]

That would just be impractical, from a calendar point of view.
We're barely into the 7th Astral era, and Astral eras usually last over a thousand years.
There are devastating events all the time that don't mark era changes.
The Final Days were relatively minor ultimately.
Calamities usually cause massive geological change on top of the death count.

[Erendis]

Astral era only lasted that long because planet needed to recover. 8th calamity was actually rather soon in the bad future.

[Enkidoh]

Also, we've kind of put a stop to the cycles of Astral and Umbral now as the whole point of them was to cause Rejoinings under the Ascians' direction.

With Zodiark now destroyed and all three of the Unsundered Ascians dead (two deader-than-dead, the third redeemed and resting in the Lifestream) who were the primary instigators of the whole thing, and only a few Sundered remaining, any further 'Calamities' that do occur would have little aetherial reason to do so, other than it's initiated by yet another Sundered Ascian who has gone off the rails, and since we've already had Fandaniel fill that role, once is enough.

[Necrotica]

The Final days had more of a world wide impact than the Bahumat attack. Judging from all the abominatiions in the skies of Thanalan, 90% of all life on the continent was turned.

Seriously that sky had swarms of them. If each one was once a person I am amazed there is anyone left in Thanalan at all.

[KageTokage]

I think you mean Thavnair.

It's a little hard to gauge exactly how devastating any disaster was to a region's population unless specifically stated as what we see in-game is a "condensed" version of the world with the city-states having populations of hundreds if not thousands in actuality.

[SilverArrow20XX]

Though the 8th Calamity was indisputably a calamity.
It nigh on destroyed the ecosystem and created an Umbral Era that lasted probably centuries.

The Final Days was a disastrous loss of life, but it didn't really cause lasting damage to the world.
Outside of Thavnair it wasn't even particularly major.
There's no age of recovery.

Even the most minor Umbral Calamity, the 7th, changed the landscape and permanently altered the weather in some areas.

[Brightamethyst]

I don't think we get to know that. I know there was a big scene where leaders proclaimed it to be the start of the Astral Era but does it really work that way? "When did the Astral Era start" feels like something future historians would decide long after the fact and the people of the time would never know.