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So, I got bored one day, and combed through lots of different references and came up with the following suggested timeline of stuff related to the Gap. See what you think and offer up any suggestions.
Azlanti Time (AT) is used to denote years from the founding of the Azlanti Empire on Golarion.
Absalom Reckoning (AR) is used to denote years on Golarion before the gap.
Pre-Gap (PG) is used to denote years of Pact Standard Time prior to the known end of the Gap in the Pact Worlds system, about 323 years ago.
After Gap (AG) is used to denote years of Pact Standard Time that have passed since the known end of the Gap in the Pact Worlds system, about 323 years ago.
-6820 AR / 9615 BC Earth / 0 AT / -10218 PG / -13678 AG
The Azlanti Empire is founded
-6632 AR / 9427 BC Earth / 188 AT / -10030 PG / -13490 AG
Eox fired their experimental planetary destroyer weapon on Daimar and Iovo (known as the twins. The weapon successfully shattered thet wins and it got turned into the asteroid belt now called The Disapora, but the weapon also completely destroyed Eox's atmopsphere and killed off much of its population. Eoxian used necromancy to survive, and today Eox is dominated by the undead and ruled by powerful Necrovites.
-6530 AR / 9325 BC Earth / 290 AT / -9928 PG / -13388 AG
Founding of the Thassalion Empire.
-5968 AR / 8763 BC Earth / 852 AT / -9366 PG / -12826 AG
The imperator drafted a formal charter to provide resources for space exploration programs, split between the Scientific Exploration and Expansion Bureau and the Aeon Exploitation Office, which explored technological and magical approaches, respectively. Both managed to send unmanned craft to suborbital space, but all were destroyed upon re-entry.
-5293 AR / 8088 BC Earth / 1527 AT / -8691 PG / -12151 AG Earthfall
A giant meteorite, now referred to as the Starstone, is called down from the heavens by alghollthus and destroys the continent of Azlant. The event becomes known as Earthfall, reshapes the surface of Golarion, creates the Inner Sea, and plunges the world into the Age of Darkness. The great empires of Azlant and Thassilon are destroyed by Earthfall. Worship of Lissala was wiped out on Golarion.
Almost the entire staff of Amaznen Research Station in orbit around Eostrillon was killed in an explosion resulting from an experiment with aeon stone-laced gears. By replicating the incident, ISA scientists invented the onos drive, rendering space travel quick, reliable, safe and routine; this is considered to be the end of the early Azlanti space age.7 In the subsequent millennia, the onos drive was key to the Azlanti's conquest of all worlds in the Aristia system, but was still too slow for interstellar travel. Their scientists tried to develop starships and engines that could traverse to other solar systems, but no experiment succeeded, the other stars remained out of reach and the Star Empire confined to a single star.
4606 AR / 1811 AD Earth / 11426 AT / 1208 PG / -2252 AG
Death of Aroden.
4858 AR / 2063 AD Earth / 11678 AT / 1460 PG / -2000 AG
The Aeon Throne was created by Ixomander I, founder of the current Ixomander dynasty, when he became Star Imperator. The empire's supreme leader is called the Star Imperator, a role filled for the last two millennia by the Ixomander dynasty. This part of history is lost to the Gap and cannot be confirmed by historical records.
Space exploration begins?
Gap begins? Lasts approximately two thousand years.
6858 AR / 4063 AD Earth / 13678 AT / 3460 PG / 0 AG
The Gap ends. All dates are counted from this year forward. Ixomander dynasty now two millennia old.
Notes: I choose the year 2063 AD 'cause of Star Trek. Had to pick some date for this to make sense. Also, I'm just assuming a flat 2,000 years for the Ixomander dynasty, since it lasted two millennia.
-D
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Also of note in the history of space and drift travel:
May contain Iron Gods spoilers:
–4363 AR: Rain of Stars. A massive alien ship crashes in Numeria. Unity, the central AI of the ship survives the crash.
Roughly -860 AR: Unity empowers the android oracle Casandalee, who will eventually become part of Triune. While on the run from unity, Casandalee scans her brain into an AI via a neruocam.
4615 AR: Adventurers thwart Unity's attempt at divine ascension, and allow the AI Casandalee to ascend using the means Unity had planned.
3 AG: Triune, a fusion of Casandalee, The Aballonian god-computer Epoch, and Brigh reveals itself, and the designs for the first drift engines.
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My one suggestion up top is that the length of the Gap is a true unknown, and thus Pre-Gap (PG) should be measured from the start of the Gap rather than the end.
I know the start date of the Gap is unknown. This is for determining an "estimated" timeline using clues through the lore. And I'm assuming that the Gap probably started with Golarion's space age (a date I picked to coincide with Star Trek's first contact, for grins and giggles), as I'd wage one of the main reasons why the Gap was made for Starfinder Lore was to side-skirt the issue of when Golarion started becoming advanced enough in tech to explore space in non-magical means, and how the whole known universe came to be, without having to do a lot of historical explanations.
As for the PG being measured from the start of the Gap instead of the end, the rationale for that was the mention of the Ixomander dynasty and Aeon Throne being founded in 1460 PG notes this was also uncertain because it was during the Gap. Now listing that as taking place 1460 years before the Gap would be better, but if it were pre-Gap, it wouldn't state that this part of history was lost to the Gap, something that wouldn't happen for over a thousand years from that date. Right?
I know the Gap caused all kinds of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, but that doesn't make sense. Plus, supposedly, the current dynasty ruling the Azlanti Star Empire has been in power for roughly two millennia. Thus, 318 AG, minus these two millennia, would put it about 1460 PG +/-.
-D
What's the source for the 1460 PG date?
Empire of the Aeon Throne. Escape from the Prison Moon, if I'm not mistaken.
-D
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That's what I assumed, but that date appears nowhere in that volume. I do see that the modern Ixomander dynasty "claims to have ruled the empire for nearly 2,000 years." I would place extreme emphasis on the word "claims."
Don't mean to nitpick, but a few former lives ago, I presented the Ravenloft design team at TSR with a 30-page, extensively detailed timeline of their setting and the very first words out of one designer's mouth were, "Is it annotated?" A few weeks later, it was.
ETA: Wait, no, I see what you're working from now. The modern Ixomander regime claims the Ixomander dynasty began 1,777 years ago (as of 318 AG). But even that specific number is relying on the same source, which is to say, propaganda. If the Ixomanders know exactly how many years it's been since the founding of their dynasty, then they either know the exact length of the Gap, or have specific chronology from within the Gap. Neither of which is feasible.
More likely, the Ixomander Dynasty began before the Gap or sometime during the Gap and the regime's historians have chosen to slap an arbitrary but impressively distant date on that event to make themselves seem more secure in their knowledge (and legacy) than they are. This could also suggest that the current regime has likely placed an official length on the Gap itself, and that in turn suggests that the modern Azlanti Star Empire's calendar may not start with the Gap, but instead some "official" continuation of the original AT dating system. As in, the current date in Azlanti reckoning may be not 323 AG but rather 3XXX or 4XXX AT (or even much higher).
P.S.: I'd also add that 1 AT, the official founding of the Star Empire (when their portal home suddenly went poof), likely coincides with Earthfall. What isolated Azlant's interplanetary and interstellar colonies was the total destruction of Azlant itself.
P.S.: I'd also add that 1 AT, the official founding of the Star Empire (when their portal home suddenly went poof), likely coincides with Earthfall. What isolated Azlant's interplanetary and interstellar colonies was the total destruction of Azlant itself.
If you're founding an empire/city what have you why not use the day you arrived there rather than the date the portal goes poof? They could have been setting up a portal colony for a good century or more before getting cut off. The empire was around for a while, why assume that the founding was in the last 15 minutes?
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If you're founding an empire/city what have you why not use the day you arrived there rather than the date the portal goes poof? They could have been setting up a portal colony for a good century or more before getting cut off. The empire was around for a while, why assume that the founding was in the last 15 minutes?
I'm just going by the source material (AP 42), which states, "1 AT: A group of Azlanti pioneers established the Azlanti Star Empire after becoming stranded on New Thespera when the portal through which they arrived closed unexpectedly."
As for why they would use that event and not their arrival, I imagine it's because it marks the founding of New Thespera as an independent entity, the start of its founding dynasty, and that leader's declaration of a mandate to lay claim to the stars.
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Right, we date the founding of the United States not from its colonization or winning the war of independence but from its declaration of independence. Until the portal went poof the the New Thespera pioneers were just some chumps setting up a colony. After it went away they declared they were an independent ass kicking new polity.
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Hmm, I need to re-evaluate the timeline, then. I didn't see the reference to 1 AT for the Azlanti Star Empire, so more research is required.
-D
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I'm just going by the source material (AP 42), which states, "1 AT: A group of Azlanti pioneers established the Azlanti Star Empire after becoming stranded on New Thespera when the portal through which they arrived closed unexpectedly."As for why they would use that event and not their arrival, I imagine it's because it marks the founding of New Thespera as an independent entity, the start of its founding dynasty, and that leader's declaration of a mandate to lay claim to the stars.
That goes the other way too. They could have founded the empire x number of years AFTER getting stranded. Maybe they took the time to get the aquaduct installed first...
Although looking through the portal and seeing that your boss and his boss are all dead, and immediately whipping out the flag that you totally did NOT have prepared for this occasion, planting it and going "mine mine mine mine all mine" strikes me as VERY azlanti...
Starship Operation Manual & Whispers of the Eclipse(Horizons of the Vast book 3) both assert that space travel was pretty well established in the Pact Worlds prior to the gap starting, as I recall. I might need to recheck those, though.
Without double checking, my memory is that it's believed that several nations had independently developed spaceflight, but that they may have been ahead of the technomagical curve. With Numeria and Alkenstar implied to have been two of them.
Plus, we know that someone had an orbital space station pre-Gap big enough to support a population of goblins.
Starship Operation Manual & Whispers of the Eclipse(Horizons of the Vast book 3) both assert that space travel was pretty well established in the Pact Worlds prior to the gap starting, as I recall. I might need to recheck those, though.
Of course it was. Absalom Station existed with all of its current technology. Akiton provided fuel to tens of thousands of in system ships. Aucturn came out of the Gap with a shattered fleet with current tech (minus gap drives) floating around it. The gap drive was the only new tech to appear after 3 AG.
Edit: oh, Gap STARTING. Yeah Verces and Eox had space travel in Pathfinder times. Eox had it thousands or tens of thousands of years before that, plus a planet killing satellite. Aballon probably could have it if they wanted.