Talk:97,445 BCE

7448 BCE?

• Who wrote this? This is no fanfic guys! Speaking of wich...Get on it Dragonclaws! -- 70.149.247.247 00:34, 20 October 2006

Actual Date

The actual quote is 100,000 years ago:

:when did the Forerunner take their "Great Journey," that would be about 100,000 years ago - around the time our Homo Sapien ancestors decided to migrate out of Africa. Mind you, that's a hotly debated paleontological theory.[1]

Taken literally would mean the Halos were fired on 97,994 B.C.E. (This year 2006-100,000 years). But I believe that Staten was just giving an approximate date so the 100,000 B.C.E. date should be used. -- Esemono 00:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

For now I will include the date 97,448 BC simply because it cited in other wiki articles here. If we made this different than it would conflict with other articles. (that is unless we should change all of the other articles.)LemonDragon 15:30, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Time Anomaly

I am very sure that the time in Earth years the Halos were fired in, it was not more or less 100,000 BCE but but infact much earlier than that. I say this because humans evolved from something else, during that time, and there was no recorded mass extinction in which all sentient life was eradicated. Besides I don't think that when 'they' said that the Halos detroys all sentient life, I would think that they meant anything with neurogical tissue, how else could a weapon be so selective, that it only destroys life that can think complicated things ie. being conscious of self-existence, in stead of life that can only think instinctively. According to my research, the correct time could be anytime earlier than 635,000,000 BCE +/- 0.007874 %

Any Reply? 06.21.12.1640 (NZ) —This unsigned comment was made by 222.152.8.155 (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts with ~~~~

The rings were desiged to kill 'any sentient being within three radia of the galactic centre'. Humans are said to have become sentient at around 100,000 BCE (You can't use BC, its offencive to anyone not christian), then they would have been killed when the rings were activated. Howether, if it was say, approximately 1000 years further, then humans may have been able to continue to evolve sentient. I am hoping u get wat i am saying, as this makes a great deal -- - Forerunner 21:34 19 jan 2007 (UTC).

though yours does sound good. —This unsigned comment was made by Forerunner (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts with ~~~~

Or... they could end up going through that portal thingy seen in the E3 trailer... —This unsigned comment was made by Forerunner (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts with ~~~~

Massive revisions

A lot of stuff in this timeline is either out of date or has been contradicted/retcon'd by newer information. Lord Hierarch (talk) 17:48, 8 April 2013 (EDT) Lord Hierarch.

97,445 BCE

As seen in the new Cannon Fodder, the Halo Array was apparently fired exactly in 97,445 BCE. Obviously, we knew that the events described in this article take place over a number of years. But now that we have the actual year the rings were fired, how should we go about this? Should we create a new article for the year and list all the events that we know happened at the same time as the Halo firing? And I don't think we really need to change around the dates on most articles since, again, the "around 100,000 BCE" estimate seen on most articles should be fine. This also solves the Didact birth year issue, if I'm not mistaken. - NightHammer (talk) 19:33, 30 January 2015 (EST)

We could always keep the other year articles as they are and simply note on this page that the actual year is 97,445 BCE—that would be much simpler and more convenient—but what makes the whole thing more complicated is the Didact's year of birth; since that particular year is derived from the 97,445 BCE date, this leaves the rest of our dates out of sync. Unless we ignore this detail I think we may have to move this article to 97,445 BCE and adjust all our other Forerunner-era dates going about 20,000 years back (since further back the rougher approximation won't matter as much). It's not ideal, I know, since it's clear most statements in the Forerunner Saga are approximate at best, but I don't see a better way to reconcile our timeline pages with the Didact's birth year. That is, until 343i comes up with a proper timeline for these events. To make the other affected dates more palatable to look at, however, maybe we could derive them from the slightly rounded-up 97,450 BCE figure, as none of them are 100% accurate anyway. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 10:11, 1 February 2015 (EST)

But of course, we're still left with the problem of the events on this page taking place over an unspecified number of years, which would also push some of the preceding dates back. Halo Canon claims Cryptum ends around four years before the end of Silentium, but we know Faber was in exile for three years before he returned to deliver the Ur-Didact back to the ecumene—which happened before Erde-Tyrene's evacuation, as noted by Catalog before it interviews the Librarian. If we extrapolated solely based on the figures we're given (which isn't taking into account the fact years or more may have elapsed between some of the events) we get 97,449 BCE for the beginning of Silentium and 97,452 BCE for Cryptum and Primordium. Maker-of-Moons' father's assassination (a relatively minor event listed on the page) would've taken place around 97,559 BCE if we assume the Didact's awakening at Uthera Midgeerrd and his rescue by Faber happened within the same year. What we'd get is something like this:

• 125,000 BCE --> 122,452 BCE (Cryptum + 25,000 years)
• 110,962 BCE --> no change
• 110,225 BCE --> no change
• 110,000 BCE --> 107,452 BCE (beginning of the human-Forerunner wars + 1000 years)
• 109,090 BCE --> 106,545 BCE (106,505 BCE/beginning of the siege of Charum Hakkor + 40 years)
• 109,050 BCE --> 106,505 BCE (106,452 BCE/end of the human-Forerunner wars + 53 years — this is as good time as any to correct the date to the more precise 53 years)
• 109,000 BCE --> 106,452 BCE (Cryptum + 9,000 years)
• 101,000 BCE --> 98,452 BCE (Cryptum + 1,000 years)
• 100,950 BCE --> 98,399 BCE (Silentium beginning + 950 years)
• 100,300 BCE --> 97,745 BCE (Halo firing + 300 years) or 97,752 BCE (Cryptum + 300 years)
• 100,200 BCE --> 97,652 BCE (Cryptum + 200 years)
• 100,043 BCE --> 97,495 BCE (Cryptum + 43 years)
• 100,000 BCE --> split into 97,445 BCE (Array's firing), 97,449 BCE (Silentium beginning), 97,452 BCE (Cryptum and Primordium), and 97,559 BCE (Maker's father's assassination)

Notify me of any mistakes there may be. The dates will look like a mess compared to what we have now, but at least they'll be nominally "accurate" since that's the game 343 Industries wants to play. I don't really see it necessary to alter the dates going further back as they're no longer affected by the syncing problems faced by integrating Faber's and the Didact's birthdates to the timeline, not to mention they're even more roughly approximated. I used the supposed year Cryptum takes place (97,452 BCE) as a baseline for many of the historical dates since most of them are first mentioned in Cryptum, and the slightly more precise "9,000 years earlier" value for the end of the human-Forerunner wars is only given in that book. However, I wasn't sure whether we should derive the beginning of the Forerunner-Flood war from the events of Cryptum or the activation of the Array, as both are possible; there's a statement in Cryptum that the conflict has been going on for 300 years, but since this is obviously an approximation like everything else, is it more sensible to simply refer to the Halos' firing year in this case? --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 01:39, 3 February 2015 (EST)

Some additional points I've been considering:

• I'm still not fully sure about the three-year span for Faber's exile. He states his forces held their salient for three years, but it's still possible he didn't start his operation immediately after escaping his trial at the Capital, not to mention the possibility that he's lying. However, since everyone would know how long he had been missing, Faber would most likely not attempt to lie that he had been running his racket for more than that time, implying that his exile lasted for at least three years. One could argue that since he's attempting to justify his actions to the Master Juridical, he would be likely to claim he'd been busy for most of the time he was gone, which would make the three-year period a quite reasonable guess for the entirety of his exile. And since the Librarian still doesn't know about the Ur-Didact's return as of the beginning of Silentium, it's probable that not too much time had passed from Faber's return at that point; most likely—though not certainly—less than a year.
• Should the dates further out in the past (ie. more than 1000 years back) be derived from the supposed 97,452 BCE date for Cryptum or from the more established 97,445 BCE one for the Array's firing?
• Should we make some of the earlier dates more approximate? E.g. rounding 106,452 BCE down to 106,450 BCE (assuming we derive this date from 97,452 BCE and not 97,445 BCE). With the exception of the beginning of the siege of Charum Hakkor and the Primordial's discovery, as those are affected by the more precise 53-year-figure for the Charum Hakkor campaign. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 02:36, 4 February 2015 (EST)

I think it's worth moving the current date pages to the more specific, accurate ones. The contradictory cases can possibly be treated as retcons, with the newest date information being the deciding factor for when what took place. Tuckerscreator^(stalk) 03:46, 4 February 2015 (EST)

I hope I don't become too insulting by saying this but, this is halopedia, not halo wiki. We should be thorough and extremely precise. Talking about in general, so less rounding as possible when possible, more work, more time but more accurate. My biggest problem with the time line is the navigation. There should probably be a 'next year' 'previous year' button... Also fun trivia, 2555 CE is the 100,000th year milestone since the firing according to my math, 97,445 add 2555. Let's figure the dates out! Erickyboo (talk) 12:19, 4 February 2015 (EST)

It's not really about extra time or work, it's just that it feels a little silly to pin down incredibly specific dates when the novels discuss the relevant time spans only in very rough approximations. When a character in the Forerunner novels says "10,000 years ago" there's obviously going to be a fair bit of leeway in either direction. So "107,452 BCE" isn't much more accurate than "107,450 BCE" and the former date might actually give the false impression that this is the exact year when it's in all likelihood anything but. I'm not arguing that we actually round the numbers, just noting that they won't be 100% accurate either way. I would really like it if 343i published an official timeline documenting all these events though since they got us into this mess in the first place. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 12:51, 4 February 2015 (EST)

I think that we should create a page for 97,445 BCE for the firing of the Halos and any other event that we can confirm took place that year. Like you said Jugus, I don't believe it's necessary to create pages for years when we aren't entirely sure if our estimations are exact. This page could just be used as a "hub" page for everything from Cryptum to Silentium. I think that we should derive the dates from 97,445 BCE, since it is more exact and, if I'm correct, 97,452 BCE date is just estimated. That being said, I believe that we should make the dates more approximate, although perhaps we should note it on the page. - NightHammer (talk) 21:46, 4 February 2015 (EST)

I'm fine with basing most of the dates on 97,445 BCE, though since we know for a fact there's at least seven years between the end of Cryptum and the firing of the Array, this would make the year of the test-firing of Installation 07 and Mendicant's disappearance unfortunately inaccurate due to the relatively precise 43-year figure we're given in Cryptum. Maybe we could move this page to 97,445 BCE and keep the content mostly as it is, and still move the 100,043 BCE date to 97,495 BCE (50 years before Array firing, taking into account the minimum of seven years between Cryptum and Silentium, which I believe to be a fairly justified estimate). All the dates further back would be based on the established 97,445 BCE.

All of the year pages which will contain information that is estimated or approximated in some way will obviously contain notes explaining our conclusions (much like 109,090 BCE). I'll put up a revised draft informed by this discussion shortly. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 01:38, 5 February 2015 (EST)

A revised summary of the proposed changes based on the above discussion (the only major change is the use of the established 97,445 BCE as a baseline rather than the more uncertain dates derived from statements in the novels):

• 125,000 BCE --> 122,445 BCE
• 110,962 BCE --> no change
• 110,225 BCE --> no change
• 110,000 BCE --> 107,445 BCE
• 109,090 BCE --> 106,538 BCE
• 109,050 BCE --> 106,498 BCE
• 109,000 BCE --> 106,445 BCE
• 101,000 BCE --> 98,445 BCE
• 100,950 BCE --> 98,395 BCE
• 100,300 BCE --> 97,745 BCE
• 100,200 BCE --> 97,645 BCE
• 100,043 BCE --> 97,495 BCE (along with a note containing the rationale for why this is 50 years before 97,445 BCE and not 43, which is explained in my above posts)
• 100,000 BCE --> 97,445 BCE (a hub page for the last decade, though I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility of splitting this one up) --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 12:10, 12 February 2015 (EST)

Is there enough information to identify years for the Primordium timeline? I understand that Primordium starts towards the later half of Cryptum and I wasn't sure if the events of Primordium take place in a long enough time span to justify different years. S.g.ali (talk) 12:41, 12 February 2015 (EST)

Yeah, Primordium kicks off during the final battle at the Capital at the end of Cryptum. Judging by the way the book is effectively one continuous narrative I doubt the events take place over much more than a month; certainly nowhere near a year ("over 22 days" is the biggest number we get and that's near the end of the book, though Chakas also loses count of the days a few times). The biggest gaps that we know of are between Primordium and Silentium (3+ years) and the beginning and end of Silentium (4 years). --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 13:40, 12 February 2015 (EST)