Grand Cosmere Timeline

[Firesong she/her]

I just felt like attempting to make a massive timeline of all major events in the cosmere. 

This is not finished, like my Cosmere numerology thread, this will be expanded over time. 

 

Spoiler

Before Shattering: Adonalsium creates the Cosmere

Before Shattering: Roshar created by Adonalsium

Before Shattering: Hoid Becomes a Dawnshard

0: The Shattering occurs, the 16 take up Shards and move across the cosmere. 

~-9000: Honor and Cultivation arrive on Roshar

???: Creation of Scadrial, Ruin sealed away, Preservation injured

???: Dominion and Devotion Splintered

???: Ambition Splintered, Mercy assisted 

???: Ahsyn destroyed, the Expulsion

-6525 R: Heralds Created, Odium sealed away

???: Creation of Urithiru

???: A Desolation, fall of Eiliz, Tarma, and Sur

???: Nohadon writes the Way of Kings

E8Y337: Starfalls Vision, start of a Desolation

-5420 FE, -3334 R: A Desolation

-5419 FE, -3333 R: The Last Desolation 

-1024 FE, -992 R: Well of Ascension fills/is used 

-843 FE, -827 R: The False Desolation and the Recreance 

-667 FE, -667 R: Vorin and Fe calendars become equal

1 FE, -60 R: The Lord Ruler ascends and moves Scadrial, start of the formation of the Final Empire

66 FE, -872 H, 0 R: Start of the Vorin Calendar 

595 FE, -342 H, 480 R: Dynastic Collapse in Bayala

637 FE, -300 H, 518 R: Vo the Returned

807 FE, -36 H, 673 R: Heirocracy and War of Loss 

937 FE, 1 H, 707 R: The Manywar ends 

984 FE, 48 H, 750 R: Kelsier is born

1022 FE, 86 H, 784 R: Kelsier killed, The Lord Ruler dies, Destruction of the Pits of Hathsin and disruption of interplanetary trade with Scadrial

1025 FE, 92 H, 786 R: Ascension of Harmony, The Catacendre

100 PC, 192 H, 877 R: The Lord Mistborn steps down from authority and vanishes 

194 PC, 286 H, 1045 R: Potential signing date of the Allomantic Agreement of '94. 

235 PC, 327 H, 1082 R: The Pahn Khal Rebellion  

277 PC, 369 H, 1120 R: Dalinar is born

294 PC, 386 H, 1136 R: Potential signing date of the Allomantic Agreement of '94. 

299 PC, 391 H, 1140 R: Wax is born

304 PC, 396 H, 1145 R: Gavilar crowned as king of Alethkar

308 PC, 401 H, 1150 R: Wayne is born

309 PC, 401 H, 1150 R: Adolin is born

313 PC, 405 H, 1154 R: Renarin is born

316 PC, 408 H, 1156 R: Jasnah begins preparing for the end of the world

324 PC, 416 H, 1163 R: Burning of Rathalas 

327 PC, 419 H, 1166 R: First Alethi interactions with the Listeners 

328 PC, 420 H, 1167 R: Assassination of Gavilar Kholin, Shallan kills her mother, start of the Eighty's War (thus implied to be a different date on the calendars used by the Makabaki)

335 PC, 427 H, 1173 R: The Last Desolation begins 

337 PC, 429 H, 1175 R: Harmony begins to make Wax his Sword (from RoW epigraphs)

337 PC, 429 H, 1175 R: The Ascension of Odium

337 PC, 429 H, 1175 R: Contest of Champions 

342 PC, 434 H, 1179 R: First interactions with the South Scadrians

348 PC, 440 H, 1184 R: Autonomy routed from Scadrial, Contact with Bjendal interrupted, Explosion of the Pewternaut, Wayne Dies

350 PC, 442 H, 1185 R: Cities across Elendel Basin and the Roughs begin to push for independence from the Elendel government

353 PC, 445 H, 1190 R: Stormlight Era 2 starts 

417 PC, 510 H, 1247 R: Era 3 (around 70 years after the end of Era 2)

???: Physical Realm Space Travel discovered

???: The Iriali leave Lumar, Xisis arrives at Lumar

???: Riina arrives at Lumar

???: The Ones Above initiate contact with First of the Sun

???: The Father Machine destroyed 

Some assumptions 

Spoiler

I did some math and assumed the gap between SA5 and 6 would be 12.5 years by averaging the 10 and 15. Then further saw from this, the latest that AoL would take place is around 4-5 years after SA5, and I made it end around 10 years after SA5. This is essentially the largest assumption that I made. 

I assumed all gaps of "around X years" to be exact numbers. 

Note, a lot of dates can get pretty off due to how I am making conversions between Rosharan and standard years. These can compound over time as I base another time on a rounded date, which I then use as basis for another date, and etc. 

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by Firesong

[Treamayne]

Thanks for the hard work. some comments/ideas:

• Did you not list "Ruin released from the Well" for a reason?
  • Are you basing his release as 1024 or 1023?
• Do we have a confirmed orbital period for FE Scadrial, since TLR maintained the old calandar and seasons (in theory) no longer matched up?
  • I ask because there are at least two "winters" after Kelsier dies and before the Vin went to the Well, then another year passes before the start of HoA.
  • I have all of the seasonal references listed in this post, but it's hard to map to "years" until we have that orbital period.
• Shouldn't 94PC be another option for the Signing of the Allomantic Agreement of '94.
  • I realize the theory that the apostrophe is believed by some to to indicate 194 or 294 - but AFAIK that's still conjecture, not confirmed. I'm in the camp that this feels like a Lord Mistborn law and 094 would be nearing the end of Spook's "reign" as he was working to institute a constitutional government.

Thanks again for the hard work.

[Firesong she/her]

18 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Thanks for the hard work. some comments/ideas:

• Did you not list "Ruin released from the Well" for a reason?
  • Are you basing his release as 1024 or 1023?
• Do we have a confirmed orbital period for FE , since TLR maintained the old calandar and seasons (in theory) no longer matched up?
  • I ask because there are at least two "winters" after Kelsier dies and before the Vin went to the Well, then another year passes before the start of HoA.
  • I have all of the seasonal references listed in this post, but it's hard to map to "years" until we have that orbital period.
• Shouldn't 94PC be another option for the Signing of the Allomantic Agreement of '94.
  • I realize the theory that the apostrophe is believed by some to to indicate 194 or 294 - but AFAIK that's still conjecture, not confirmed. I'm in the camp that this feels like a Lord Mistborn law and 094 would be nearing the end of Spook's "reign" as he was working to institute a constitutional government.

Thanks again for the hard work.

1: No, I will add that eventually, just not in the mood rn. 

1.1: I am basing the catacendre on 1025, as Coppermind does. I forgot if Ruin was released in '23 or 24', though, need to check. 

2: We do not, but it isn't relevant for the timeline as they kept the same calendar and year length (by their reckoning, year length was technically shorter)

3: I am one that believes that it means it is 194 or 294, as 'x usually means that part of it is cut off. So, if it was 94, they most likely would just say 94 instead of '94, but you are correct that it is not confirmed.  

Edited August 25, 2023 by Firesong

[EyeKon]

That is an impressive amount of work.  It is both easy to read and understand while having daunting scope!

I'm guessing Elantris does not have any kind of dates placed in it where it could be estimated when the events of the Hoed starting and ending was?

[Zelly]

This is a thing that floats around: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJtJhHwpKdow01n2-bsT3scVvqJd6lZh4uvpNwcslv8/edit#gid=0

No idea who started it or updates it or if anyone does, thought I'd mention it though.

(Also not sure if Yumi and Nightmare Painter is the best place for this thread).

Edited September 26, 2023 by Zelly

[Treamayne]

5 hours ago, Zelly said:

(Also not sure if Yumi and Nightmare Painter is the best place for this thread).

It has to go here because YatNP is still in the Spoiler Period. It's in the Cosmere section, because once the spoiler period ends, all threads in this section will be moved to the Cosmere Discussion Forum - which is the thread's true home (but only after the Spoiler Period ends).

Edited September 26, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG

[AquaRegia he/him]

May I say I love the fact that Wayne and Adolin were apparently born in the same "year"?  Lovely work!

In our universe, any attempt at a timeline like this (spanning multiple star systems) would be seriously problematic, as relativity renders obsolete the concept of simultaneity.  But I doubt it will be a problem in the Cosmere, mainly because Brandon will not make it a problem.

[Firesong she/her]

15 hours ago, Zelly said:

(Also not sure if Yumi and Nightmare Painter is the best place for this thread).

Did it as I planned to add more Yumi stuff later, I haven't been working on this for a bit because I have been off this forum for a bit, taking a break. 

17 hours ago, EyeKon said:

That is an impressive amount of work.  It is both easy to read and understand while having daunting scope!

I'm guessing Elantris does not have any kind of dates placed in it where it could be estimated when the events of the Hoed starting and ending was?

We don't know the exact time it takes place, current plans are that it is after White Sand but before Mistborn Era 1. But Brandon said that he might have to change it up if the timeline doesn't work out properly once more crossover begins to occur. 

6 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

May I say I love the fact that Wayne and Adolin were apparently born in the same "year"?  Lovely work!

In our universe, any attempt at a timeline like this (spanning multiple star systems) would be seriously problematic, as relativity renders obsolete the concept of simultaneity.  But I doubt it will be a problem in the Cosmere, mainly because Brandon will not make it a problem.

The thing is, gravitational time dilation on planets is absurdly minor. Earth is 0.9999999993 Seconds per 1 Second (Scadrial would be the same). Roshar would be 0.9999999996. Sel would be 0.9999999987 (not accounting for the dilation due to the Dor). So, that wouldn't be too relevant. Gravitational Time Dilation only becomes something you have to worry about when you are dealing with like, black holes and the like. 

I did include the difference in year length between Roshar and other planets, and just approximated all other year lengths to be equal, as Brandon said most planets have a very close year length. If the years were different, I would include that. It is annoying to deal with, but rather easy to account for. 

Unless you mean how we technically see the past as we look up into the sky. But that isn't exactly that relevant to this as there are methods to travel between planets in cosmere via the CR. But in our world, yeah, it wouldn't really work as all we would have is observation of "old light" of sorts. 

[AquaRegia he/him]

What I meant is this, and it's more than just the problem of speed of light vs FTL travel.  The Theory of General Relativity essentially rules out the possibility of asserting that two events separated by long distances have occurred simultaneously; differing frames of reference can observe "A before B" or "A after B".  Add FTL travel to that, and you might end up with a time-travel mess of truly confusing and contradictory timelines.  If travel through normal space at relativistic speeds is affected by time dilation, but FTL travel (say, through the CR) is not, I think you may have invented time travel as well.

But I doubt Brandon wants anything like that.

[Firesong she/her]

23 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

What I meant is this, and it's more than just the problem of speed of light vs FTL travel.  The Theory of General Relativity essentially rules out the possibility of asserting that two events separated by long distances have occurred simultaneously; differing frames of reference can observe "A before B" or "A after B".  Add FTL travel to that, and you might end up with a time-travel mess of truly confusing and contradictory timelines.  If travel through normal space at relativistic speeds is affected by time dilation, but FTL travel (say, through the CR) is not, I think you may have invented time travel as well.

But I doubt Brandon wants anything like that.

I feel you misunderstand relativity. It is about the observation of simultaneity not being absolute. It means that events would appear to happen at different times due to the speed of light, and that it is hard to assign it exactly due to dilation, which is, in most cases, extremely minimal. So, relativity doesn't really contradict what I am doing, as we have a sort of absolute way to reference the occurrence of different events that isn't just like, observing an event at a distance and saying it happens concurrent to when you observe it. 

CR also isn't time travel, it would just create a weird scenario where the light reflected from you is still travelling. When you look at a different planet, you are not seeing its present, you are saying its past. Therefore, if you see events happening on it involving a figure that you can see in front of you, said individual did not travel through time,  Also, you do not actually move faster than light, you just move in a place where the distance is shorter, but you still move at the same speed. 

I just have issues in general with the idea that FTL means time travel, as I feel it all comes down to people trying to argue that an event happens when the light hits you, and not when the event actually occurs. Like saying that when a meteor crashes on mars, and we see it ~4.16667 minutes later, that it actually did occur 4.16667 minutes after the meteor crashed. Which I feel is a strange leap in logic. I don't think you observing an effect before the cause violates causality, as you aren't seeing the events as they happen. Causality is not broken. I get the whole "no universal reference frame" as a result of dilation and such like, but I don't get the logical leaps they go through to say "well, the light hits us at different points, thus we must be in different points in the timeline." I have studied into relativity a lot, but this is one of the few things that I just find bizarre and based more around a very bizarre definition of time travel more than anything else. 

Like, another example, if a person sends an FTL signal from Earth to a person at, like, a station around TOI-1338b. How I see it, is that even though they would observe the sending of the signal after they actually receive it, it does not mean that they actually went back in time, it just means that they were observing light that was still travelling after it. It is like a delay on a website, just a very slow ping. So it isn't time travel, it is just going to be really confusing to observers as they can't trust what they observe to be an accurate depiction of the present time. Which is something we already deal with, with exoplanets being seen as far younger than they actually are due to the slow (relative to the distance), velocity of time. 

Now on it being impossible to actually go FTL, yeah, I agree with that as that fits with our observations pretty well, we have observed time dilation and everything. I totally buy that part and don't have much argument against it. But the level of time dilation with the things we are talking about is so absolutely infinitesimal that it would literally take billions of years to be anything noteworthy. And, even despite all of this, it isn't relevant as the CR isn't FTL, so the physical impossibility of FTL isn't that relevant.

Furthermore, the cosmere is a fictional universe with its own cosmology so he could just define it as possible without time travel via the CR, while still maintaining several different parts of SR (not Spiritual Realm, Special Relativity) and GR. 

Sorry for the ramble, I just am not a fan of the idea that FTL means time travel due to the light arrives at an observer coming after they receive the message and such. I don't really want to argue on this, I like to avoid things that frustrate me (depression and GAD make it a bad idea to engage too much) so we can move on. : )

[AquaRegia he/him]

2 hours ago, Firesong said:

I feel you misunderstand relativity.

I have no doubt this is true; I'm not sure ANYONE really understands it!  ;-)

[MasterK-Bob he/him]

Do we know Yumi is this late? I definitely assumed it was not all the way to 6th of the Dusk.

[alder24]

8 hours ago, MasterK-Bob said:

Do we know Yumi is this late? I definitely assumed it was not all the way to 6th of the Dusk.

Yes, Yumi's story is quite late and Hoid tells it relatively shortly after it happened (as Nikaro is still alive and they still own this noodle shop). By the time Hoid tells his story, people in Cosmere know what Awakening is, they all seen or spoke to an Awaken computer - this kind of technology was seen only both in SotD and Tress, with their talking ships and advanced Awakened circuits, so Yumi is place close to those books, far in the future of Cosmere in Era 4. WoB:

Spoiler

Argent

Staying with Yumi, since we're asking the big questions here. I want to talk about the big machine, the father machine.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

There are some really interesting what feel like intentional parallels between it and Nightblood.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

There's smoke involved, there's eating of souls, there's a whole bunch of things. So what I do want to ask is: one, was the father machine Awakened using Breaths, using Nalthian Awakening? Or are you using Awakening as Lightweaving or Bondsmithing which is an overarching system in the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It's the second. This wouldn't exist in the pre-space-age as much; by space age there's a certain terminology that is going between... basically it's starting with the arcanists and moving to the general population. What certain themes in the Cosmere magics mean. And so when Hoid says "this is an Awakened machine" his audience understands what that means. It does not necessarily mean Breaths Awaken, but Breaths are one of the main ways that people see things be Awakened. You should be noticing those parallels, but that's a term that in the Cosmere is becoming genericized to mean un-living object being given some measure of sentience and even sapience by application of Investiture, Commands, and these sorts of things. By this point they've all interacted with various Awakened machines of sorts in the future Cosmere. They know what this means. They've talked to an Awakened computer.

Argent

Interesting! Very interesting! That's what I was hoping you would answer. Because Awakening is such a cool term for Awakening an object, right!

One notable difference between the father machine and Nightblood other than them using different magic systems to be Awakened is that the Machine was able to somehow draw people's souls at a distance, which seems EXTREMELY broken to me.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I had to let... This is going to be a pretty special circumstance for this book. But yes. It is pretty broken. You wouldn't want this to be... this could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Don't expect this to be very commonly used in the Cosmere.

Argent

Was that a side effect of the magic system that was used to Awaken the machine, or was there something else going on?

Brandon Sanderson

This is a side effect of what Virtuosity did and the bit of Virtuosity in all the people allowing the Machine to have enough of a plausible Connection to them to draw upon them.

Argent

Ok. Interesting. I will think about this while I pass the ball back to Matt.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. This is me pushing just a little bit hard on the boundaries of what is possible. It is possible, but it it is pushing further than I normally would on the bounds of what that can do.

Shardcast Interview (July 30, 2023)