There are cracks & crevasses on Apostae that weren't there in 1e, that are estimate to be between 800 and 1200 years old, so that's the minimum time that could have passed, assuming those cracks opened up right after 1e ended & just haven't been mentioned yet in 2e.
|
Sounds good to me on the thousand years mark. People certainly know of Golarion and things like the starstone but I don't recall any mention of when/how it got moved to Absalom station. It's also enough time for a lot of the tech to be developed but not so much we'd expect colonies in other systems or even more advanced tech like time travel, TARDIS's or galaxy hopping ships.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you're thinking about time travel in your SF campaign, they mention that in the adventure the Rune Drive Gambit.
That it is generally considered a bad idea to time travel into the Gap.
I'd give it a few thousand years. In addition to the development of advanced technology, it is also the proliferation of said technology cosmologically that makes me think there is a few thousand.
Four score and seventy blergs
2. Let's just say that next year's APs are going to be _very_ eventful.
I'd give it a few thousand years. In addition to the development of advanced technology, it is also the proliferation of said technology cosmologically that makes me think there is a few thousand.Thing is, pre-Gap there wasn't any such cosmic scale proliferation of technology. The tech development in the Golarion system largely stayed in the Golarion system. It was only after the Gap and the arrival of the Drift Drive that technology spread started happening across the galaxy.
We now know that isn't actually true, though. Interstellar travel was possible during the gap, with the SOM offering up other interstellar drives. They aren't as good as drift engines being that "near space" isn't a thing with them so they all work on vast-level time scales, but they do exist.
|
|
We now know that isn't actually true, though. Interstellar travel was possible during the gap, with the SOM offering up other interstellar drives. They aren't as good as drift engines being that "near space" isn't a thing with them so they all work on vast-level time scales, but they do exist.I'd give it a few thousand years. In addition to the development of advanced technology, it is also the proliferation of said technology cosmologically that makes me think there is a few thousand.Thing is, pre-Gap there wasn't any such cosmic scale proliferation of technology. The tech development in the Golarion system largely stayed in the Golarion system. It was only after the Gap and the arrival of the Drift Drive that technology spread started happening across the galaxy.
It gets even more confusing with the fact that even pre-spacefaring civilization Golarion had magic interstellar travel it was just rare and took powerful magic.
Its one issue I have with the new drives to be honest they're all X theme and tied to Y group usually with travel through a plane and/or with other side effects. There should be spelljammer like tech particularly since you have at least one canon mythic insterstellar starSHIP in the silver maiden. Sure its hoplessly slow in comparison (2d20 weeks between stars) but its a form of interstellar travel prior to any kind of common travel. There's also Baba Yaga who's from earth originally, the elven gates and more.
To be clear I'm not saying we need a purely magic drive that's better than drift travel, I'm saying we need purely magic and hybrid tech/magic drives that are only cost restricted not group restricted. You can get them without dealing with the group controlling their drives because it doesn't infringe on their plane/religion since we know it can be done but they're very expensive because their either antiques or the playthings of powerful mages as while fast 1-3 they're not as fast as the most advanced drift engines 1-5. The main reason they're even still used is that especially on the bigger ships it doesn't make a difference in speed since magic or drift your looking at equivalent travel times but smaller ships can travel far faster via drift in potential anyway. So the beings/groups powerful enough to have magic drives are either using them on the bigger ships or because of other reasons however they are available if you want to go that route.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah it was clear that they felt that they needed to justify drift engines being so ubiquitous if other FTL drives existed. They apparently concluded that it can't jut be that drift engines are better, what with allowing for rapid travel back to Absolom & near space being a thing with them.
Which, really, drift engines just being better probably wouldn't be enough given that some players - and in setting groups - do take ethical issue with drift travel what with the whole, it sucks in part of another plane every time you make a jump, thing. Not to mention, while a trip through Hell or the Shadow Plane or the Maelstrom would always be inherently dangerous, if you had a good aligned party there' no reason why a trip through the upper planes - well, at least Heaven & Nirvanna - wouldn't be pretty safe.
Also, plane shift is a fairly high level spell for a reason & they establish that you can stop your ship while in planar travel. Just me, personally, I'd want to make it a little harder for people to go to Heaven or Hell & potentially meet or at least catch a glimpse of a god. Like, that's the kind of thing that if I were building the setting I'd either not make a thing or make highly restricted & keep out of the player's hands.
I do like the Constellation Orrery, though. That's a neat idea. Like a magic version of the Mass Relay network.
|
|
Yeah it was clear that they felt that they needed to justify drift engines being so ubiquitous if other FTL drives existed. They apparently concluded that it can't jut be that drift engines are better, what with allowing for rapid travel back to Absolom & near space being a thing with them.
Which, really, drift engines just being better probably wouldn't be enough given that some players - and in setting groups - do take ethical issue with drift travel what with the whole, it sucks in part of another plane every time you make a jump, thing. Not to mention, while a trip through Hell or the Shadow Plane or the Maelstrom would always be inherently dangerous, if you had a good aligned party there' no reason why a trip through the upper planes - well, at least Heaven & Nirvanna - wouldn't be pretty safe.
Also, plane shift is a fairly high level spell for a reason & they establish that you can stop your ship while in planar travel. Just me, personally, I'd want to make it a little harder for people to go to Heaven or Hell & potentially meet or at least catch a glimpse of a god. Like, that's the kind of thing that if I were building the setting I'd either not make a thing or make highly restricted & keep out of the player's hands.
I do like the Constellation Orrery, though. That's a neat idea. Like a magic version of the Mass Relay network.
The reapers are coming.
Seriously though its one of the things along with sensor ranges that I'm going to be houseruling. These provided drives are faction restricted because (a) they're inherently dangerous (trip to hell) or (b) the faction doesn't want every tom, censored and Barry popping by their gods garden when heading off to Alpha Centauri.
Still early day's but rough draft I'm nabbing the old warp drive from star trek with variations.
Standard tech/magic drive functions as per warp rules i.e. cube factor of warp speed = travel speed. Warp factor 1 = light speed, warp factor 2 = 8 times, warp factor 3 = 27 times, warp factor 4 = 64 times and warp factor 5 = 125 times light speed (stars are actually closer than people think with the nearest being only 4 light years away). These drives can't be used in a gravity field (mainly to avoid you do that hyperpace skipping from a certain recent star wars movie). You need to go to orbit before you can engage them. This is where tech/magic/hybrid space travel drives were at prior to drift drives. Attempting to use them in a gravity field of 1 or greater causes the drive to fail and take damage as if it'd been shot in combat.
The reason they sort of stalled around warp factor 3 and have only progressed to warp factor 5 on the most advanced is because the wealthy and magically powerful groups turned their researchers from improvements of the warp drives to adapting the drift drives. These are the new systems given in the starship book. They give drift speeds via certain planes that are either dangerous or that the group wants to limit use of.
Drift travel is well covered in the book.
So in my game you'll have 4 options . . .
1) The commonly used drift drives that can get you anywhere in the galaxy in 5d6 day's maximum with the issues of shunting matter into the drift, the hazards of said drift and possiby speed reductions based on engines.
2) Possibly depending on faction the variant planar drives developed by certain groups that allow drift travel speeds but at the upper end still aren't as fast.
3) The "obsolete" warp drives that are safe, reliable but slow and not capable of travelling as far especially compared to the drift. They are however still available for purchase because some groups are opposed to drift travel, some prefer to know that new colony is reachable from their home world, some because you don't have to sit still before you can shift to/from the drift, some because they don't want ships popping in and out of reality close to their worlds where it can cause a potential collision as drift travel is inherently impossible to perform accurate traffic control. Warp drives function mostly the same as the drift drives for purchase/installment except they don't have a maximum ship size limit. However only warp 1 to 3 are commonly available, warp 4 requires a ship tier of 7 or higher and warp 5 a ship tier of 14 or higher. There are rumours of more advanced drives being developed by certain militaries or cabals of mages that can reach warp 6 or even 7 (GM approval required).
4) Special drives that aren't intended for player use and represent things like the silver maiden. Special, one off or lost tech that doesn't quite function like other mass produced travel systems. The constellation orrery's would be in this cateogry.
Interestingly while you can have both a warp drive and a planar drive (faction allowing) with no problems warp and drift travel is incompatible (many believe deliberately on Triune's part to further draw people into using drift drives). Using drift travel with a warp drive on board or warp travel with a drift drive functions as an automatic and unavoidable ship selfdestruct as both drives explode.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Based on the Ages of Golarion table in the Scepter of Ages section of Artifacts and Legends, I would suggest that the Gap lasted at least 5300 years because of the following:
Present day 4,712 AR Modern day (as detailed in The Inner Sea World Guide)
Near future 4,712 AR to 9,999 AR Modern day with political changes
Distant future 10,000 AR to 99,999 AR New cultures, new technologies
Far future 100,000 AR to 999,999 AR Totally alien cultures and science
Extreme Beyond 1,000,000 AR Non-humanoid dominance, revised geography
Note that somebody using the Scepter of Ages to go into the future would not end up in the Pact Worlds but wherever Golarion is at that time, but we can still use the Pact Worlds setting to estimate which era it is set in. I think the "distant future" entry comes closest to describing the setting of Starfinder relative to that of Pathfinder, so the end of the Gap would be somewhere in that era.
|
|
Based on the Ages of Golarion table in the Scepter of Ages section of Artifacts and Legends, I would suggest that the Gap lasted at least 5300 years because of the following:
Present day 4,712 AR Modern day (as detailed in The Inner Sea World Guide)
Near future 4,712 AR to 9,999 AR Modern day with political changes
Distant future 10,000 AR to 99,999 AR New cultures, new technologies
Far future 100,000 AR to 999,999 AR Totally alien cultures and science
Extreme Beyond 1,000,000 AR Non-humanoid dominance, revised geography
Note that somebody using the Scepter of Ages to go into the future would not end up in the Pact Worlds but wherever Golarion is at that time, but we can still use the Pact Worlds setting to estimate which era it is set in. I think the "distant future" entry comes closest to describing the setting of Starfinder relative to that of Pathfinder, so the end of the Gap would be somewhere in that era.
4,000 years is a long time with just "political changes" given how much our world has changed in the last hundred never mind the last thousand.
4,000 years is a long time with just "political changes" given how much our world has changed in the last hundred never mind the last thousand.Based on the Ages of Golarion table in the Scepter of Ages section of Artifacts and Legends, I would suggest that the Gap lasted at least 5300 years because of the following:
Present day 4,712 AR Modern day (as detailed in The Inner Sea World Guide)
Near future 4,712 AR to 9,999 AR Modern day with political changes
Distant future 10,000 AR to 99,999 AR New cultures, new technologies
Far future 100,000 AR to 999,999 AR Totally alien cultures and science
Extreme Beyond 1,000,000 AR Non-humanoid dominance, revised geography
Note that somebody using the Scepter of Ages to go into the future would not end up in the Pact Worlds but wherever Golarion is at that time, but we can still use the Pact Worlds setting to estimate which era it is set in. I think the "distant future" entry comes closest to describing the setting of Starfinder relative to that of Pathfinder, so the end of the Gap would be somewhere in that era.
Flip side of that is how little Golarion has changed in the last few thousand years of it's history, which is a frequent issue in this particular flavor of fantasy setting, and is an issue the devs have acknowledged, regret, and advise against in the 1e GM book.
I'm also not a fan of the widely thrown around explanation of magic leading to stagnation given that actual scientific & technological innovation tend to come along during times where things are already advanced enough to allow for specialization & scholarship; with magic easing the burden on food production & disease that gives people more time to dedicate towards study, experimentation, & innovation, & should allow for easier development. And if magic isn't common enough to allow for that, then it shouldn't be a crutch to hold back society.
Having said that, I also think it's a fallacy to expect development to match or be comparable to what our own history has been. We've got a sample size of one for the rate of global development & shouldn't demand every work of fiction to match what we have done & expect ourselves to do. There are times society has advanced faster than seems plausible, times it has stagnated, times it has regressed, and countless factors deciding which one happened & how long. In a world with more active forces acting on it & therefore more variables determining it's development we can't really judge the rate of that development too harshly.
I'd also state that the question you asked was how long between the end of 1e and the start of Starfinder; ie, 4719 AR & 318 Ag. That question is not the same as "how long did it take the pact worlds to develop into sci fi space faring societies".
Golarion could have become a space faring world by 5200 AR or earlier, and Starfinder might have still started at what would have been 10k AR. Verces & Eox remained roughly the same, technologically speaking, for thousands of years before PF 1e. No reason why the pact worlds couldn't have been at roughly their same level of tech as they are now for thousands of years before SF's start date & that's all just forgotten in the Gap.
And it may yet suffer a few more. Might have already had a few if one wants to headcanon that Starfinder's Golarion has a few "PC's loose" outcomes for it's AP's.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My headcanon is that the Gap "began" at the 1E/2E Pathfinder transition and lasted several centuries, though I don't focus on it too much. In fact, I actively try not to focus on it, since I'm a personal stickler for clear timelines and if I *do* focus on it too much, it'll just drive me nuts.
One potential clue that the Gap only lasted a few centuries is a Triaxian dragon in Pact Worlds. She was alive before the Gap and enough of a threat that a contingent of metallic dragons attacked her a few decades before the Gap. She's still alive in the modern era, and stated to be very old--which means somewhere between 600-800 years of age. She's also stated to be three times per pre-Gap size. Doing some napkin math, that means she's Gargantuan today and was probably Large then, which would have made her a juvenile dragon at the start of the Gap. Which then sort of implies that she might have been attacked as soon as she advanced from young to juvenile? Really nipping a problem in the bud there, old-timey metallics!
(Complicating factors: She's heavily augmented and who knows how much time she might have spent in medical stasis during the Gap to become More Machine Than Dragon. Like I said, this stuff can drive you nuts.)
|
|
My headcanon is that the Gap "began" at the 1E/2E Pathfinder transition and lasted several centuries, though I don't focus on it too much. In fact, I actively try not to focus on it, since I'm a personal stickler for clear timelines and if I *do* focus on it too much, it'll just drive me nuts.
One potential clue that the Gap only lasted a few centuries is a Triaxian dragon in Pact Worlds. She was alive before the Gap and enough of a threat that a contingent of metallic dragons attacked her a few decades before the Gap. She's still alive in the modern era, and stated to be very old--which means somewhere between 600-800 years of age. She's also stated to be three times per pre-Gap size. Doing some napkin math, that means she's Gargantuan today and was probably Large then, which would have made her a juvenile dragon at the start of the Gap. Which then sort of implies that she might have been attacked as soon as she advanced from young to juvenile? Really nipping a problem in the bud there, old-timey metallics!
(Complicating factors: She's heavily augmented and who knows how much time she might have spent in medical stasis during the Gap to become More Machine Than Dragon. Like I said, this stuff can drive you nuts.)
Well even then she was apparently enough of a threat to beat or at least survive the attack by multiple metallics.
A real firecracker, that one.
But there is still quite a noticeable evolutionary development in some species, since no one has mentioned this. For example, at Lashunta. Or is this a massive mutation?i always thought that was a technological advancement.
And here I thought it was a cultural advancement.
CRB says it's a cultural shift compared to older times.
It's apparently a psychic ritual during puberty that determines which type of lashunta you end up as.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Why are we assuming that the edition change is the beginning or during the Gap? I would think that the Gap begins in the future and that Pathfinder present is more likely to be in the time before the Gap with no dates given. When I first read the setting books I always thought that Golarion had at least a near future level or technology before the Gap.
Pathfinder is more likely to be contemporaneous with the first few Vesk emperors or the invention of the Rune Drive than the Gap.
For me, the edition change is simply a convenient marking point that happens to coincide closely with the literal point where Golarion's history turns murky, that being the publication of the Starfinder RPG.
Because it's a convenient reason to not have dozens of immortal wizards still running about the universe. And a reason to remove the knowledge of how the APs all ended. Which is why I've always assumed the gap starts pre-rise of the runelords. How far before, I dunno, but pretty sure it's before.
Image a Starfinder adventure where you go back in time before the Gap, and you end up in an alternate past of Golarion?
This would allow classes like the Witchwarper to access multiple different futures and multiple different pasts in their fluff about tapping into different parallel dimensions.
And, you could build adventures using the PF1 APs bad endings. What if the Worldwound had won? What if Reign of Winter, a ice age ran rampant? etc.
Because it's a convenient reason to not have dozens of immortal wizards still running about the universe. And a reason to remove the knowledge of how the APs all ended. Which is why I've always assumed the gap starts pre-rise of the runelords. How far before, I dunno, but pretty sure it's before.
There is another explanation for that, though; all the immortal wizards were on Golarion & Golarion isn't there anymore, so they're wherever it is. As for why they didn't get off of Golarion, that question can't be answered by the placement of the Gap.
That's also an answer for why none of the endings of the AP's get brought up; they're irrelevant to the modern setting because they happened hundreds or thousands of years ago on a planet that isn't there anymore.
|
|
Because it's a convenient reason to not have dozens of immortal wizards still running about the universe. And a reason to remove the knowledge of how the APs all ended. Which is why I've always assumed the gap starts pre-rise of the runelords. How far before, I dunno, but pretty sure it's before.There is another explanation for that, though; all the immortal wizards were on Golarion & Golarion isn't there anymore, so they're wherever it is. As for why they didn't get off of Golarion, that question can't be answered by the placement of the Gap.
That's also an answer for why none of the endings of the AP's get brought up; they're irrelevant to the modern setting because they happened hundreds or thousands of years ago on a planet that isn't there anymore.
If I were say a lvl 20+/MR10 immortal wizard who'd ascended during say wrath and live through to starfinder I'd probably be more interested in exploring that big huge galaxy or fining an answer to who futzed with my memories. We do afterall have immortal wizards in the EOS who are presumably powerful beyond the current Mystic/Technomancer limits.
Yeah but again, the start of the gap being at the point of the edition change or the start of Pathfinder or the death of Aroden or whenever, doesn't actually explain where they went. Because there's a period of however long that no one remembers where they would have still been there & free to explore & teleport around the galaxy, and now they'd just be wherever they were with no memory of however long it's been since the gap started. They'd still exist regardless of when the gap starts, is my point.
The immortal wizards were inside us all along.
...
GET IT OUT! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
...
Now where did I put my spell components?
Contributor
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I do like the Constellation Orrery, though. That's a neat idea. Like a magic version of the Mass Relay network.
The Constellation Orrery was my personal favorite of the ones that I wrote up. I'm so glad you liked it. If it will help your home game, I did imagine that the Church of Ibra took passengers, and loved exchanging star stories with them.
Hmm
|
My headcanon is that the Gap "began" at the 1E/2E Pathfinder transition and lasted several centuries, though I don't focus on it too much. In fact, I actively try not to focus on it, since I'm a personal stickler for clear timelines and if I *do* focus on it too much, it'll just drive me nuts.
One potential clue that the Gap only lasted a few centuries is a Triaxian dragon in Pact Worlds. She was alive before the Gap and enough of a threat that a contingent of metallic dragons attacked her a few decades before the Gap. She's still alive in the modern era, and stated to be very old--which means somewhere between 600-800 years of age. She's also stated to be three times per pre-Gap size. Doing some napkin math, that means she's Gargantuan today and was probably Large then, which would have made her a juvenile dragon at the start of the Gap. Which then sort of implies that she might have been attacked as soon as she advanced from young to juvenile? Really nipping a problem in the bud there, old-timey metallics!
(Complicating factors: She's heavily augmented and who knows how much time she might have spent in medical stasis during the Gap to become More Machine Than Dragon. Like I said, this stuff can drive you nuts.)
I've been intrigued by that dragon as well. Dretchnyliax is such an interesting figure. Did she survive because she was machine as well as dragon? Hard to say. It interests me because is at least one player race -- witchwyrds -- that share a life span similar to dragons. If Dretchnyliax's survival from pre-Gap times is purely based on draconic lifespan, then there should be witchwyrds floating around with pre-Gap memories as well. If it is because she was in stasis getting augmented, then maybe she's unique as being a living person who has spanned that time period.
All the other sentients still alive from that time period being undead.
Though... given witchwyrd propensity to be solo merchants with non-witchwyrd mercenary crews, and to hold on to secrets and be somewhat enigmatic about proprietary information, I suspect that any witchwyrds with pre-Gap memories wouldn't advertise the fact.
Hmm
|
|
I do imagine there'd have to be some around given the number of immortality options available every single immortal can't have died or been on Golarion when it vanished. I just imagine their the super rich private estate or crazy old man wanderer types where you simple aren't going to encounter them. Either their in possession of massive wealth and resources in their secure Ultranaught/Demi-Plane/Planet/Etc or they're posing as humble, ordinary people as they wander about the place. Either way they're not likely to run into starfinder players given the size of the galaxy and the desire to move away from that kind of power. I'm sure I read somewhere that there is that kind of magic its just not publicly available. The Eos for example would have to have a number of lvl 20 wizards/sorcerers among their number in addition to mystics and technomancers and other classes.
On the other hand maybe they all took the approach to the gap which one group took to an Arkham horror game I was in. There was a powerful bomb going to go off and we just couldn't disarm it but we could all relocate to another dimension till it went off escaping the damage then come back and resume the game. Maybe all the immortal wizards are in another dimension/cryo-sleep/other waiting to return like the current AP has with an alien race?
I do imagine there'd have to be some around given the number of immortality options available every single immortal can't have died or been on Golarion when it vanished. I just imagine their the super rich private estate or crazy old man wanderer types where you simple aren't going to encounter them. Either their in possession of massive wealth and resources in their secure Ultranaught/Demi-Plane/Planet/Etc or they're posing as humble, ordinary people as they wander about the place. Either way they're not likely to run into starfinder players given the size of the galaxy and the desire to move away from that kind of power. I'm sure I read somewhere that there is that kind of magic its just not publicly available. The Eos for example would have to have a number of lvl 20 wizards/sorcerers among their number in addition to mystics and technomancers and other classes.
On the other hand maybe they all took the approach to the gap which one group took to an Arkham horror game I was in. There was a powerful bomb going to go off and we just couldn't disarm it but we could all relocate to another dimension till it went off escaping the damage then come back and resume the game. Maybe all the immortal wizards are in another dimension/cryo-sleep/other waiting to return like the current AP has with an alien race?
Honestly this is more or less what I believe; that it varies from one immortal to the other, that they're scattered about the galaxy or on Lost Golarion or living as rich recluses or ordinary citizens or are locked in stasis - willingly or unwillingly - from one to the next as suits their whims & just what events transpired in their life with no one common cause among them.
My initial point was simply, as I said, that putting the start of the gap at the edition change doesn't actually do anything to address where they went unless one also assumes that Golarion disappears directly at the start of the gap - which we can be pretty sure didn't happen.
Oh, there's definitely a lot of immortals on Eox who were around long before the Gap.
|
|
I do imagine there'd have to be some around given the number of immortality options available every single immortal can't have died or been on Golarion when it vanished. I just imagine their the super rich private estate or crazy old man wanderer types where you simple aren't going to encounter them. Either their in possession of massive wealth and resources in their secure Ultranaught/Demi-Plane/Planet/Etc or they're posing as humble, ordinary people as they wander about the place. Either way they're not likely to run into starfinder players given the size of the galaxy and the desire to move away from that kind of power. I'm sure I read somewhere that there is that kind of magic its just not publicly available. The Eos for example would have to have a number of lvl 20 wizards/sorcerers among their number in addition to mystics and technomancers and other classes.
On the other hand maybe they all took the approach to the gap which one group took to an Arkham horror game I was in. There was a powerful bomb going to go off and we just couldn't disarm it but we could all relocate to another dimension till it went off escaping the damage then come back and resume the game. Maybe all the immortal wizards are in another dimension/cryo-sleep/other waiting to return like the current AP has with an alien race?
Honestly this is more or less what I believe; that it varies from one immortal to the other, that they're scattered about the galaxy or on Lost Golarion or living as rich recluses or ordinary citizens or are locked in stasis - willingly or unwillingly - from one to the next as suits their whims & just what events transpired in their life with no one common cause among them.
My initial point was simply, as I said, that putting the start of the gap at the edition change doesn't actually do anything to address where they went unless one also assumes that Golarion disappears directly at the start of the gap - which we can be pretty sure didn't happen.
I thought the gap happened after starflight but before drift drive and that back then magic was pretty much the only way to do FLT so they'd be more likely to be off Golarion.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I thought the gap happened after starflight but before drift drive and that back then magic was pretty much the only way to do FLT so they'd be more likely to be off Golarion.
The gap ended post starflight but before drift travel. The gap covers a long period of time - bare minimum, it covers 500-900 years(going off of those cracks in Apostae), and every source that I've seen that describes it, describes it as lasting for "several" thousand. Personally I define "severa" as "more than 5, less than 12", but whoever wrote the line isn't bound by my definition of the word & could have been using it for 3 or 4.
I recall someone arguing that the gap needed to have started shortly after the current time in PF because the CRB mentions Iomedae having ascended to godhood "centuries before the gap" and she'd been a god for about 900 years by the start of PF, though pedantically one could describe a period of 1900 years as "centuries" before one should switch over to millennia, assuming one doesn't have a penchant for understatement.
Or maybe there is nothing before the Gap. Everything is a simulated reality.
Rovagog/the devourer took a bite out of the space time continuum and the gods had to put it back