Halopedia talk:Projects/Timeline/Eras

Cross-over?

Could it be possible to alter the dating of the eras to allow them to cross-over in dating? According to the dates given, the Unggoy's entrance into the Covenant empire as subjects is the "Globalization era".-- Forerunner 20:23, 27 March 2011 (EDT)

I would much prefer that we change the dates so that they can intersect, allowing us to use whichever era is necessary. The date-specific method works fine over at Wookiepedia because much of the galaxy is linked together - everyone knows what's going on. Think of it more in the sense of Earth's BCE ages. Before the establishment of (then) advanced and progressive (for the time) civilizations like the Romans and Greeks much of the world was isolated. You could be at a bronze-age level of development while a tribe just a couple miles away might be at an iron-age level. I hope someone will reply soon.-- Forerunner 09:45, 16 June 2011 (EDT)

While I'm in full support, I think the only problem of implementing such concept is the lack of data regarding the Covenant's own timeline. We don't really have sufficient information about the past of the Covenant to establish a reliable timeline.— subtank 04:27, 21 August 2011 (EDT)

I'd suggest a Precursor era before the Forerunner - we now have information regarding them. The Forerunner era, which covers their galactic dominance, should be shortened by 60,000 years to end with the activation of the rings. The time between 100,000 BCE and the Writvof Union in the 10th century BCE would be listed as the Dark time, where the galaxy's sentient species are forced to start again at Tier 7. With no support from the Forerunners or each other, many go extinct. The era ends with the founding of the Covenant as a major force intent on succeeding the Forerunners - it's essentially a redone 'Rise of the Covenant' era. 'Human' can run alongside it from wherever we see fit (earliest civilization? The industrial revolution?) to the end of independent nation-states.-- Forerunner 10:15, 21 August 2011 (EDT)

What information? All we know was that at some point there was a Forerunner-Precursor war. We can't even say who won. Maybe the Precursor's fled or something like that. So I don't really think we have enough info for that yet. Maybe after Primordium comes out, though. Vegerot goes RAWR! Vegerot (talk) 12:04, 21 August 2011 (EDT)!!

Post-War

Just to confirm, Halo 4 will be taking place during the "post-war" era? Vegerot (talk) 14:10, 16 June 2011 (EDT)!

Yes it will:) "A Penny saved is a Penny earned" 14:22, 16 June 2011 (EDT)

Post War logo

Why is the logo for the Post War era the Marathon symbol? Shouldn't be something a little more relevant, especially seeing as the logo is not longer being used in Halo products?--Soul reaper 09:45, 26 October 2011 (EDT)

That symbol I believe represents Humanity as the "Reclaimers," considering events that have transpired since September 2552 and into the present (January/February 2553), it is quite a relevant item. Reclaiming of her empire and her natural birthright as the successors to the guardians of the mantle. 343i not owning rights to it or night has no bearing on that whatsoever. CommanderTony

Revamp!

I had another look at the organisation structure of the Timeline project page (and the Era template). I think we can further improve this categorisation by separating into their own respective timelines rather than converging all into one. To summarise;

• {{Era|For}} or {{Era|Grey}} - redirects readers to Project:Timeline/Forerunner. In that sub-page, it will list out the relevant events and what-not. To ease this process, we shall use the Timeline template as a supplement medium.
• {{Era|Cov}} or {{Era|Purple}} - redirects readers to Project:Timeline/Covenant. Similar to the above.
• {{Era|UNSC}} or {{Era|Blue}} - redirects readers to Project:Timeline/UNSC. Similar to the above.

A few notes:

• Flood would be subjected to all periods, since there hasn't been any established events (or that we even get to see from their perspective).
• All human events will be subjected to UNSC; readers are more familiar with that abbreviation than UEG; this also includes rebels. With that said, "human", "HCW" and "Post" shall be removed from the Era template.
• Realworld and ARG categories should not be altered; they stay the same.

This makes much more sense to readers when the click that little icon. It also allows us editors to focus on the Timeline page more and further improve each period/year/month/event within the Halo universe. — subtank 09:03, 3 November 2011 (EDT)

Gonna bump this old proposal.— subtank 11:46, 13 April 2014 (EDT)

I have no objections. Our current categorization is rather arbitrary and quite frankly, for the most part pointless. Unless 343i comes up with an official era structure (as Lucasfilm has done) this looks to be a superior alternative. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 13:50, 13 April 2014 (EDT)

On second thought, I believe the Flood should also have its own eraicon (which would also cover everything related to the Precursors). This would also make the system in line with that of the Essential Visual Guide, from which we could also borrow the handy color coding. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 09:05, 20 May 2014 (EDT)

UNSC blue, Covenant purple, Forerunner grey, and Flood green. Sounds like this could work. However, given the little information focused solely on the Flood compared to the other three, I don't think this would be the proper time for it to have its own eraicon. This is moreso because much of the information on the Flood is tangled with the Forerunner, the Covenant and the UNSC.

As a matter of simplification, I think using "blue", "purple", and "grey" would be a better system of categorisation for the eraicons. When users see the color blue, they are reminded of humans/UNSC, purple reminding them of the Covenant and grey of Forerunner. Plus, less typing when filling out the eraicon template. :P — subtank 09:11, 20 May 2014 (EDT)

Well, every individual type of Flood form would go in the "Flood" category. Where else would you put them? It's not like it's that much extra work, and three icons is already pretty sparse as far as the template's information value goes. As for the colors, I was thinking olive green for UNSC, bluish-gray (or just gray) for Forerunner, purple for Covenant (obviously) and brown for Flood (the system from the EVG). --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 09:25, 20 May 2014 (EDT)

New Timeline

Hello all,

I wondered if there was a general consensus that the timeline article itself should include major events from the history of the Halo universe; similar to pages 26-37 of the Halo Encyclopedia (2009 edition), for those who have read it, or the HBO story timeline.

I would be more than happy to helm the project - I will be spending lots of time on Halopedia in the coming months - although I think a new article should be started simply under the title "Timeline", as "Halopedia:Timeline" can make navigation difficult. (The timeline template at the top of the page could be moved to the new page.)

I also think the colour scheme talked about previously (UNSC green, Covenant purple, Forerunner, blue-gray and Flood brown) would be perfect to implement in the Timeline. All the major events, cleanly laid out with colour-coding and dates/locations etc would make this a great

Please let me know what you think; I can see how this request would be extinguished immediately but it would be great to get this off the ground - I think it could be the best article on the site with some hard work...

Monitor Chakas^{(Talk|Contribs)} 14:09, 8 July 2014 (EDT)

I think there's definitely potential in this idea. The entries should, however, be sufficiently brief so as to not create an overlap between the timeline page and Halo universe's "History" section, whose prose format (as opposed to a bulleted list) is fine as it is. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 15:16, 8 July 2014 (EDT)

Thank you Jugus. Yes, my idea was to have short (ideally bullet-pointed although I'm not sure how the Manual of Style agrees with this) fact-style pieces of info around a sentence long, each linked to a date; rather than a prose-based novel/game approach like Halo universe's "History" section. I would like to helm this if possible; not out of ego but rather vision - I have quite a specific idea of how this might look when finished. Of course it would be opened up after publication, but I would like permission from the Administrators to start this off. Thanks, Monitor Chakas^{(Talk|Contribs)} 16:03, 8 July 2014 (EDT)

Do you mean that it would be a page with all the main dates? Like a combination of all the main years and their main events, following the format of pages already existing like 2552? It could be useful, but would it only be for newcomers to the series, or...? If it were my choice, it would be hard for me to handpick the most important dates. Well, not like I would be the one leading the project, though. And about the color scheme, I also agree with you. Imrane-117 (talk) 16:42, 8 July 2014 (EDT)

Yes Imrane, very similar to that article. Newcomers would benefit the most, of course, but after almost every Halo event ever to take place is added it will be the definitive place to seek 'Halo' chronology. The Halo Encyclopedia (2009 edition) is good, but can never be up to date. Monitor Chakas^{(Talk|Contribs)} 18:04, 8 July 2014 (EDT)

We can place "Timeline" as a redirect and will maintain Project:Timeline as the project page. It is basically as you stated in your comment: a summary of events, preferably one sentence (i.e. "John-117 was born in 2511"). This works well especially with the proposal suggested in the above section/discussion. It would also be helpful for a future "On this day, this happened" template/feature. Also, what Imrane-117 said. — subtank 12:24, 9 July 2014 (EDT)

Yes Subtank, exactly that. Would the page simply be called "Timeline"? If so, I can start working on it this evening. It will probably take a couple of days before I have the first build ready to upload. Monitor Chakas^{(Talk|Contribs)} 12:37, 9 July 2014 (EDT)

New Timeline (Update)

Hello all,

I realise it's been a while since I was last active, although I am still working on the new Timeline when I can - I've been incredibly busy recently. I'll aim to get it up soon.

Thanks, Sam. --Monitor Chakas^{(Talk|Contribs)} 19:23, 1 September 2014 (EDT)

Overhaul of the timeline

A lot has been introduced since this fan timeline was first established for Halopedia and it might be a good time to do some overhaul. This new timeline could throw away most of the species and organization-specific eras like the Forerunner era, a 500 million year age that encompassed the height of Precursor civilization all the way to the San'Shyuum Schism. It's a bit too broad and places the Forerunners at the center of it all when we have so much evidence to the contrary. However, something like the proposed Precursor era would shine the spotlight on that species as they were at the forefront of galactic civilization at that point according to everything we know. Anyhoo, here are some recommendations I have for new eras we could use:

• Precursor era — c. 500,000,000 BCE (Creation of the Domain) to c. 10,000,000 BCE (Precursor genocide).
• Ancient era — c. 10,000,000 BCE (Path Kethona campaign) to 480 BCE (Battle of Thermopylae)
• Imperial era — 1112 CE (Yanme'e incorporation into the Covenant) to 2525 CE (Operation TREBUCHET)
  • Encompasses the expansion of the Covenant with new member races and rebellions. Groups together the imperial and colonial history of Earth prior to the 2170 reconstitution of the Unified Earth Government and afterwards with human interplanetary and interstellar colonization into the Milky Way, and the conflicts associated with this timeframe.
  • Imperial era could end in 2525 with the capture of Colonel Robert Watts at Eridanus Secundus by SPARTAN-II's, or with the February 11th Human-Covenant first contact meeting on Harvest.
• Great War era — 2525 CE (Battle of Harvest) to 2552 (Battle of Installation 00)
  • Great War is a term that could be applied to broaden the definition of related conflicts during this timeframe to include the Human-Covenant War (2525-52), the ongoing Human colonial rebellions (2494-present), Covenant rebellions and the Great Schism (252x-present), skirmishes against extant Forerunner constructs (2531-52), and the multiple Flood outbreaks and subsequent containment actions (2531-52).
• Treaty era — 2553 (Ratification of the Human-Sangheili Treaty of 2552) to present (latest canon date; 2559 or 2610)
  • Treaty era is derived from the canon "Treaty period" first noted in a universe entry on Halo Waypoint.
  • Additional names: The Human-centric Reclaimer era or the non-descript Post-war era.

Let's see if we can perfect this as much as possible. I'm excited to see any suggestions or additions you might have!
Helianthus — All right. Shoot!

Hey, I got a good way through a pretty comprehensive overhaul around 6 months ago but never finished it (I got up to the year 1999). I've been really busy with university ever since, but I'm planning to come back to Halopedia - I was nearing applying for moderator last year. It's all in a *.doc file in Wiki markup for easy editing, let me know if you want to set up a sandbox to look at it.

--Monitor Chakas^{(Talk|Contribs)} 18:57, 16 January 2015 (EST)

I'd love to help work on it to make a nice timeline! SamGall (talk) 19:08, 16 January 2015 (EST)

Yeah, that sounds good! I can check it out and see where we could interject ideas and maybe adopt each other's. Go ahead and put your document here on my sandbox page. Thanks for replying back so soon too! :) Helianthus — All right. Shoot!

I was wondering if we could do away with the naming of each era. Maybe a more neutral naming. — subtank 22:09, 17 January 2015 (EST)

That could work. What sort of naming scheme were you thinking of instead? Helianthus — All right. Shoot!

I like most of what Helianthus said, but I'm still concerned because of the way we're supposed to apply the eras to some articles. For example, Installation 00 and Requiem would fit into the Imperial era because they "existed" at the time, but it has nothing to do with them. Dropping the names and keeping the years only may be better, but less easy to remember. Imrane-117 (talk) 12:54, 18 January 2015 (EST)

I'm with Subtank on this. The division of eras is mostly fine by me, but I'm not a fan of using catchy names that could be interpreted as official by a more uninformed reader (the primary reason I quickly grew to despise the title "Reclamation conflict"). As for the names, "Precursor era" I'm mostly fine with as it sounds descriptive and applicable. "Ancient era" I'm not too sure about—I'd rather go with "Forerunner era" because whatever relevance humanity's former civilization or the Flood had, the Forerunners were still the ones with by far the most significance. "Imperial era" is succinct and fitting but it runs into the same problem as "Ancient era"—it sounds too official when our era names are anything but. As for "Great War era", I'm well aware of that name's usage in a couple of pieces of official material but that name is nonetheless so fringe that it faces the same issue as the Ancient and Imperial eras. For the post-war period I'd be fine with Treaty era or Post-war era. That said, maybe we could throw away the notion of named eras altogether and just include the dates/years and (possibly) descriptive section titles, something like the "History" section of the Halo universe page?

As for other suggestions, the Precursor era could potentially be said to begin even earlier than that 500,000,000 BCE, perhaps an indefinite date in the universe's infancy—they claim to have existed before there were stars, so the stated date for the Domain's creation might be too exclusive. And I'd definitely end the ancient/Forerunner era in 100,000 BCE as the Halos' firing is a massively significant end-of-an-era event whereas the Battle of Thermopylae is fairly random and arbitrary in comparison. Overall I'm in favor of having no precisely defined dates for the beginning or end of each era—a certain degree of flexibility is always a good thing to have, especially when dealing with something that is entirely a fan-made construction. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 03:34, 19 January 2015 (EST)

Halo Mythos' timeline

I might be late to the party but I noticed that Halo Mythos now provides a "somewhat" definitive timeline. They are as follows:

The Forerunner Legacy (10,000,000 BCE - 852 CE) Ancients Battle of Charum Hakkor Construction of the Array Mendicant Bias Return from Exile Fate of Maethrillian Destruction of the Ark Activation of the Array The Dreadnought War of Beginnings Formation of the Covenant

Rise of Humanity (2080 CE - 2552 CE) The Interplanetary War Domus Diaspora The Insurrection Spartans First Contact at Harvest War Begins Shield World Tide of Destruction SPARTAN-III Program Under Siege

End of the War (2552 CE) The Fall of Reach Last Stand Escape from Reach Battle of Alpha Halo Unyielding Hierophant Assault on Earth The Fight for New Mombasa Battle for Delta Halo The Onyx Conflict Siege at Voi The Final Battle

The Aftermath (2553 CE - 2556 CE) The New Spartans Earth's Fleet Escape from Onyx Kilo-Five The Blood of Brothers Peril on Gao Remnants of War Return to the Ark Betrayal on Talitsa Alpha Shard

Return of the Prometheans (2557 CE - 2558 CE) The Composer The Didact Awakens Cortana's Sacrifice Mission to Gamma Halo Covenant Resurgence Spartan Ops Janus Key Conflict Blue Team Meridian Return to Sanghelios Genesis Arrival

Note that I used the word "somewhat" because certain timeline entries (such as the Kilo-Five, Blue Team, and Meridian) are not events but rather subject of historical entries. That being said, the only useful part of this "somewhat" definitive timeline would be the main headings, which are as follows:

1. The Forerunner Legacy (10,000,000 BCE - 852 CE)
2. Rise of Humanity (2080 CE - 2552 CE)
3. End of the War (2552 CE)
4. The Aftermath (2553 CE - 2556 CE)
5. Return of the Prometheans (2557 CE - 2558 CE)

As a final point, there is a description to each timeline headings provided in the reference guide which I would rather not copy and paste. So, shall we amend and update this project page according to the "somewhat" definitive timeline above? — subtank 13:41, 20 March 2017 (EDT)

Might as well since this is somewhat official.--Spartacus ^{Talk • Contribs} 14:39, 21 March 2017 (EDT)

Mythos' system is a little unintuitive as it's tailored specifically for that book and its range of subjects, hence we end up with oddities like 2552 warranting a whole entry (rather than the whole of the Covenant War); a more "universal" timeline would probably be more balanced in how it distributed the eras. However, since it is official it's still preferable to our current fan categorization. We'd still have to decided whether to include the gap between 852 CE and 2080 CE to "The Forerunner Legacy" or "Rise of Humanity", though. Probably the latter. --Jugus (talk) 15:06, 21 March 2017 (EDT)

@Jugus: I share your view. A point to note: the reference guide was curated by a UNSC AI which would explain the pro-human narrative in Halo Mythos, the lack of information on the Covenant history and the gap between those two dates. To ensure balance to this "somewhat" official timeline, may I propose that we remove all forms of era descriptor from the Timeline template by revert back to this design? As for this project page, obviously a rewrite is needed with special attention as to the era descriptors to ensure that readers are made aware that the timeline used in Halo Mythos is "somewhat" one-sided. — subtank 12:26, 22 March 2017 (EDT)

Agreed on restoring the template. Regarding the changes to the page itself, however, I do think the "Unknown years" part is more than a little clunky and comes off as a bit out of place considering there isn't much of anything "unknown" about that part of history (at least no more than the other "eras"). I'd just integrate it into the "Rise of Humanity" section and make a note about the concession. --Jugus (talk) 14:03, 22 March 2017 (EDT)