Editing User:Alahmnat/Timeline extrapolation (section)

== Primary anchor date: The Fall of D'ni ==

D'ni fell on Leesahn 8, 9400 DE. This is essentially the only officially-known date from this period in D'ni history, so every other nearby date on the timeline has to be extrapolated from it. Fortunately, the Book of Ti'ana mentions enough absolute time spans and hard numbers in relation to this event to make what I believe are some reasonably accurate estimates.

To start, there are several dates that can be calculated based on Gehn's age when D'ni fell. He was 8 at the time, having been inducted into the Guild of Books at the age of 4. Based on this, we can estimate that Gehn was born in 9392 DE, and inducted into the guild system in 9396 DE.

At this point, things start to jump around a bit. During the trip that Ti'ana, Aitrus, and Gehn took to the Lodge just before Gehn's induction, Ti'ana mentions that her mother died 35 years ago. This places her mother's death in 9361 DE. Earlier in the story, during a conversation with her father shortly before venturing into D'ni for the first time, the book notes that the accident that killed her mother was 6 years ago. Given this information, we can determine when she found D'ni: 9367 DE. The book also notes that she was 18 at that point, meaning she was born in 9349 DE. 

When Ti'ana found D'ni, Aitrus was 55, meaning he was born in 9312 DE. He became a Guild Master at 38 (9350 DE), and was elected to the council 3 years later (9353 DE). Knowing when Aitrus was born also allows us to date the construction of the Great Shaft. Just before the Guild Council approved its construction, Guild Master Telanis revealed in a conversation with Master Kedri that Aitrus was 25. This means that the Great Shaft was built (or at least started) in 9337 DE. 

(Note: Mark's D'ni Archives site put ''seven'' years between the death of Ti'ana's mother and her discovery of D'ni, placing it in 9368 DE and causing all of the dependent dates to be off by one. I think this is the result of a mis-reading of the text in that portion of the story, where a year's worth of surveys are mentioned in an aside. These surveys were not performed contemporaneously, but rather ''before'' Ti'ana's father discovered the stone ring formed by the soundings for the Great Shaft.)

From here, the remaining pre-Fall dates get a bit fuzzier. Ti'ana went to live with Aitrus's family roughly 5 or 6 months after she entered D'ni and was arrested by the Guild of Maintainers. Several months after that, Veovis found out that Aitrus had taken Ti'ana to his family's Age of Ko'ah. Ko'ah was confiscated, and Aitrus resigned from the Guild Council. While the controversy was settled in Aitrus's favor within a couple of weeks, he refused to re-join the Council for several years after that. These events took place somewhere between 9367 DE and 9368 DE, but there is no way to reliably date each them with any further accuracy. 

According to the Book of Ti'ana, Aitrus re-joined the Council 15 years before Gehn was born, which means he did so in 9377 DE. This is the first occasion where the Archive's existing timeline is more than a single year out of step with these new calculations. Due to an error on ''my'' part in reading the text of the novel, I thought Aitrus and Ti'ana had married 15 years before Gehn's birth. However, they were actually married "[a] few years" after Aitrus returned to the Council, and *that* is the date from which Gehn's birth is measured. Thus, Aitrus and Ti'ana were married some time ''after'' 9377 DE, but the novel is not specific enough to determine a firm date.

As a matter of interest, there is a possible chronological contradiction in the Book of Atrus with regards to A'gaeris's expulsion from the guild system. The novel notes on several occasions that this took place 50 years before Gehn's birth, which would place his expulsion in 9342 DE. However, the novel also notes that when A'gaeris was expelled, Veovis still a cadet in the Guild of Writers. This is difficult to square with the rest of the chronology. By 9342, the Great Shaft had been finished for 5 years. Veovis and Aitrus were of a similar age, and Aitrus was no longer merely a cadet by then—he was only a few years from becoming a Master at that point. It's possible that this works out on a technicality, but it's equally possible that "fifty years" is David Wingrove's go-to "long period of time" value. Ultimately, I'm just not confident enough in the text to assert the 9342 date as definitive.