Thread: Current Timeline of Events from 2.0 On

So the timeline of events in the game always interests me, and let's be honest, the 'ever expanding bubble of one year' is the weakest argument ever made, especially since it directly conflicts with several other sources about travel times.

As such, I think it can be said that the timeline of events, more or less, can be contained within a 3 year period, perhaps a little less, but no smaller than 2 years.

Year 1: Realm Reborn and Heavensward
This is the one that is the 'stretchiest' in many ways, the events of Realm Reborn likely took several months, but we know for a fact Heavensward must have played out over some time between 3 and 9 months, because a woman you encounter during the questlines goes from pregnant with child but not showing to having given birth to that child.

Year 2: Stormblood
By far the biggest hurdle to the idea of 'everything in the main quest happens within one year's time', due to the travel times between Othard and Aldenard. Even if we assume airship travel is significantly faster, airship travel was not safe until the later patches when the Garlean Empire began to fracture and fragment, so we're looking at a several months trip both ways by ship, and you definitely, in the story, took one trip yourself by boat.

Year 3: Shadowbringers and Endwalker
Of all of the expansions, these are by far the most flexible. Endwalker involves a place where time dialation effects are occuring, and so what might have taken weeks, months, even years in the First could have, and probably were, only bare weeks in the Source. For Endwalker, by far the most globe trotting of the expansions with how much and how far the player goes, the distances involved are all covered by air or by magical teleportation, with the sole exception of the march into Garlemald itself, which was ostensibly done via well maintained garlean roads between the capital and through some of their most developed, but by that point, least defended lands, as all of the armies in those regions had pulled back to take part in the civil war, thus leaving a big gaping hole through while anyone could travel relatively unopposed.

Anybody got bits or bobs to add to this theory?

I should note that I hold basically two perspectives on this.

From a roleplaying perspective, it's generally just a safe and smart idea to assume that every expansion takes as long as it took to transpire in-game, and travel time takes as long as is narratively appropriate for our characters. So yes, about ten years have passed at this point.

But from a straight-up 'the story as it's given to us' perspective, the expansions go, from shortest to longest...
Shadowbringers: No significant confirmed travel times, and during the events of the story the Source is a 1:1 flow of time with the Source. It probably took a while, but also there weren't any off-screen time jumps. Genuinely, a major unknown to confirm here that would alter things is 'how long does the WoL sleep', because that actually accounts for a lot of time passing.
A Realm Reborn: Again, no major travel gaps, but ARR clearly took quite a while and has a lot of events in it. Probably took longer than Shadowbringers even if it also probably transpired mostly as we saw.
Heavensward: I believe there's mention that at least one of the airship trips in HW took quite some time, but I haven't reviewed it in a while. The pregnant woman's also fairly big as a detail.
Endwalker: Between the boat trip to Sharlayan and the journey to Garlemald, we've got two significant trips; no timeframe was mentioned for either, but looking at the map says they couldn't have been small.
Stormblood: If you don't think it's hilarious that Stormblood is the longest expansion chronologically, mostly because of boat trips, we have a fundamental comedic disagreement. By all logic this took months, plausibly longer than a year, although the length was probably front-loaded since the reason we went through Sirensong was because of the Garlean-controlled seas; since that was a problem we actively solved, chances are the Othardians' trip to Ala Mhigo was shorter than our own trip to Kugane.

But also, it's definitely been less than a year. Nashu told us that, and she would know!

Originally Posted by Cleretic

But also, it's definitely been less than a year. Nashu told us that, and she would know!

While I adore and love Nashu, I also simply do not trust her judgement on anything that isn't actively associated with a current mystery. (Also did she say it had been a year since we revived everyone's favorite inspector? Or has it been a year since we last SAW each other)

Originally Posted by Seraphor

Do we have a source that states it takes 'several months'? I'd be onboard with 'several weeks', but I think months sounds a bit much. I wouldn't be all that surprised if they claimed it only took a week or two to get to Othard either.

IIRC, in one of those early SB quests were we told something along the lines of "it usually takes three months to get to Kugane, but with my secret magitek engine I can do it in one."

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Yeah, that's why I averaged the traveling speed down to 8 knots. If he could have it on the whole time, I'd have used 12 knots for the calc.

I still feel like 12 is still very generous for an old-style tall sailing ship that's retrofitted for an onboard engine. We don't know what the output is of a ceruleum engine, but early steamships topped out at 10 knots and had an average speed of between 8 and 9 knots.

If we can find the quote of how long it was expected to take vs how long Carvallain said it would, that would give us our average speed.

Originally Posted by shadowclasper

So the timeline of events in the game always interests me, and let's be honest, the 'ever expanding bubble of one year' is the weakest argument ever made, especially since it directly conflicts with several other sources about travel times.

As such, I think it can be said that the timeline of events, more or less, can be contained within a 3 year period, perhaps a little less, but no smaller than 2 years.

Three years is a reasonable estimate, but we don't have enough evidence to actually nail down a timeline. More than one year, probably no more than 5-6 years is about all we can say for sure.
Can't be much more than 6 years, or the twins (Alphinaud and Alisaie) would have grown to their adult height by now.

Originally Posted by Seraphor

Do we have a source that states it takes 'several months'? I'd be onboard with 'several weeks', but I think months sounds a bit much. I wouldn't be all that surprised if they claimed it only took a week or two to get to Othard either.

The lore book itself says from Limsa Lominsa it’s 2 months to Doma and 2 weeks to Old Sharlayan.

Carvallain said he could make it a bit faster, but Hingashi is also further away than Doma and our ship got dragged off its original course.

Yugiri was at sea for “many moons” before making it to Eorzea.

Originally Posted by Seraphor

It may be half-way around the world, but I don't think we can assume the world is just as big as Earth.

There’s nothing in-game that says it’s smaller. If the planet was smaller and also had less mass, that would affect things from how objects move and the size and shape of mountains.

It’s easier to assume that the planet is the same size as Earth and that writers have no sense of scale than the alternative.