Seventh Astral Era or Eighth Astral Era?

[Mazora_Espeon]

Hi everyone! I'm writing this thread to figure out which Astral Era will we be adventuring in in FFXIV: ARR. I know sometimes websites can contain incorrect information and the website I got it from is also from a wikia. According to finalfantasywika.com, they have it written that the people of Eorzea believe in the cycle where periods of abundance are followed by periods of catastrophe. - http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Seventh_Umbral_Era

In Yoshi-P's 40th letter he writes that...

"2012 will be remembered as the year the Seventh Umbral Era storyline drew to a close, and the curtains came down on the original version of the game. But every end marks a new beginning, and 2013 will see Eorzea begin a new chapter with the arrival of the Seventh Astral Era. As we’ve been doing so far, we will keep pouring our hearts and minds into the game and see it safely to rebirth."

After reading the letter got me to thinking about the era we were in before the day Dalamud decided to say "F U" to our face and P-M-S'd all over Eorzea. So, on finalfantasywikia it said that the last umbral era, which I'm assuming was the Sixth Umbral Era, happened 1, 500 years ago. With that in mind, I started posing a few questions...

1. How long does a said "era" last?

2. If we were to take the updates since 1.19 when the first events and changes of Dalamud started within the game to be the equivalent to a few years then that would solve the elapse of time issue, however, if it doesn't then with the release of the ARR trailer, how many years has it been since the day Dalamud exploded in the sky? That being said what year/"point in time" is it now in Eorzea in the AAR trailer?

3. With questions 1 & 2 in mind and the research founded about the umbral and astral eras, my final question is what era are we in now?

So with all of this information in mind I started thinking about the lore of FFXIV and came up with a few theories and thoughts...

1. During the event of Dalamud, it has been proposed by many FFXIV players that Louisoix send the chosen adventures to a moment forward in time, though clearly it isn't known how far/much or if they were went back in time at all. It could have been a "when" in time.

2. Given the amount of time that finalfantasywikia said about how long ago the last umbral era had loomed over Eorzea, the Seven Umbral Era could not have been that short nor could it have taken Dalamud 1000 years to reach it's humongous size during FFXIV 1.0.

3. If it is true according to finalfantasywikia that it is believe a period of abundance is followed by a period of scarcity then the time that ARR is taking place has to be years since the events of Dalamud, now how long that period would have been is unknown, but by the looks of the new ARR trailer it couldn't have been more than 100 years because Thancred a Hyur hasn't aged at all. And since he hasn't aged at all then could the idea of an alternate timeline be true? And furthermore, if what finalfantasywikia said about the sequence of Umbral and Astral eras are true, then we technically should be in the Eighth Astra Era, however, Yoshi-P said that we would be in the Seventh Astral Era when we play ARR which if that is true then it would mean that the information on finalfantasywikia is false. So which is true?

So that's my thoughts about FFXIV's lore so far. I realize that this is a virtual game and I know that ppl would say that "it's just a game" etc., etc., but even if it's just a game it's also a story. And yes it would be a fictional story, but regardless of what kind of story it is, it is always good to have context of the story to be correct thus in essence the "facts" of the story. So with that, what I would like to know is which era are we in now? Which statement is true?