The (not so) welcome Archangels

Actually, Fallsfromtrees, can you point to the text supporting your dates of 2499 for the start of the Angelic War and 3249 for when Nimue woke up? I don't have my books handy here at work, but those dates don't seem to give enough time between the launching of Operation Breakaway and Pei's nuke.

SWM wrote:Actually, Fallsfromtrees, can you point to the text supporting your dates of 2499 for the start of the Angelic War and 3249 for when Nimue woke up? I don't have my books handy here at work, but those dates don't seem to give enough time between the launching of Operation Breakaway and Pei's nuke.

Explicitly in the case of the wakeup, and the first meeting where one of the archangels warns of trouble coming, and then says later "Although I warned you only a few days before that new challenges might await you, not even I expected this... The Archangel Shan-Wei has fallen"

I think we can take that as the start of the War against the Fallen.
[edit] You are right that the time frames seem do seem too short, and I have no idea how RFC reconciles them. [/edit]

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SWM wrote:Actually, Fallsfromtrees, can you point to the text supporting your dates of 2499 for the start of the Angelic War and 3249 for when Nimue woke up? I don't have my books handy here at work, but those dates don't seem to give enough time between the launching of Operation Breakaway and Pei's nuke.

Explicitly in the case of the wakeup, and the first meeting where one of the archangels warns of trouble coming, and then says later "Although I warned you only a few days before that new challenges might await you, not even I expected this... The Archangel Shan-Wei has fallen"

I think we can take that as the start of the War against the Fallen.
[edit] You are right that the time frames seem do seem too short, and I have no idea how RFC reconciles them. [/edit]

By "the wakeup" do you mean the Day of Creation? David has told us that a considerable amount of time (many decades) passes between the Day of Creation and the day that Pei sets off the nuke (which is the start of the Angelic Wars). You can tell this because the Adams already have grandchildren and many have already died of old age. [edit]Correction: some of their children have died of old age. The Adams themselves had Federation medical nanites and lived a couple centuries.

On the Dating Issue.

In the Safehold FAQs, topic "Are there more secret brotherhoods out there which know the truth", David Weber talks about some problems in OAR concerning the time of Nimue's "wakeup".

His final comment is the Following.

The way that it actually works is that approximately 70 standard years (around 77 Safehold years) elapsed between the Day of Creation and the end of Shan-wei's Rebellion. As of How Firm a Foundation, the date is Year of God 895, and it's been 979 Safehold years since the Creation. Nimue's last update was in year 54 after the Creation (16 years before the end of the Rebellion, if any of you are counting), and she woke up in Year of God 890, 906 or so Safehold years later, which is roughly the 825 standard years to which I had changed the date in the first book. The fact that my change got "corrected" back to 750 in the copy editing process accounts for the confusion. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the problem until you people started checking the math. I had to go back and reconstruct what had happened by comparing my electronic file of the original draft for Off Armageddon Reef against the printed version to figure out what had happened. And, since I already have the 70 year interval between the Creation and the end of Shan-wei's Rebellion in How Firm A Foundation and it's too late to adjust it at this point, I'm going to have to figure out how (or if) to deal with it for the general readership who might/might not pick out what you eagle eyed . . . people have picked up on.

End Comment

Also, unless this date is "messed up" we know from OAR that September 7, 2499 is a few days prior to the attack on Alexandria Enclave and the nuking of Langhorne.

DrakBibliophile wrote:On the Dating Issue.

In the Safehold FAQs, topic "Are there more secret brotherhoods out there which know the truth", David Weber talks about some problems in OAR concerning the time of Nimue's "wakeup".

His final comment is the Following.

The way that it actually works is that approximately 70 standard years (around 77 Safehold years) elapsed between the Day of Creation and the end of Shan-wei's Rebellion. As of How Firm a Foundation, the date is Year of God 895, and it's been 979 Safehold years since the Creation. Nimue's last update was in year 54 after the Creation (16 years before the end of the Rebellion, if any of you are counting), and she woke up in Year of God 890, 906 or so Safehold years later, which is roughly the 825 standard years to which I had changed the date in the first book. The fact that my change got "corrected" back to 750 in the copy editing process accounts for the confusion. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the problem until you people started checking the math. I had to go back and reconstruct what had happened by comparing my electronic file of the original draft for Off Armageddon Reef against the printed version to figure out what had happened. And, since I already have the 70 year interval between the Creation and the end of Shan-wei's Rebellion in How Firm A Foundation and it's too late to adjust it at this point, I'm going to have to figure out how (or if) to deal with it for the general readership who might/might not pick out what you eagle eyed . . . people have picked up on.

End Comment

Also, unless this date is "messed up" we know from OAR that September 7, 2499 is a few days prior to the attack on Alexandria Enclave and the nuking of Langhorne.

Thanks. I had checked the Pearls, but forgot to check the FAQ--I knew it was around somewhere but couldn't find it.

Of course, this still doesn't add up. Just got home to check my books. Operation Breakaway was 2421. The colony fleet spent 10 years before even looking for a planet to terraform. The colonists spent an additional 8 years in cryo while Safehold was terraformed. 70 years after Creation (2499) the Alexandria Enclave is nuked. Working backwards, this means that the colony ships had already been enroute for 9 years before Operation Breakaway. It doesn't seem plausible that Safehold is only 1 year's travel from the location of the last battle with the Gbaba. Surely the Federation would have wanted the colonists to travel 10 years from the last contact with the Gbaba, rather than simply 10 years from Earth.
[shrug]

No, I've got it wrong. It is 70 years from Creation to the end of the rebellion. It is only 54 years from Creation to the destruction of Alexandria. That puts Creation around 2445, the start of Terraforming around 2437, and around 16 years from Breakaway to the start of Terraforming, i.e. more than the minimum 10 years travel in hyperspace. That works.

SWM wrote:

SWM wrote:Actually, Fallsfromtrees, can you point to the text supporting your dates of 2499 for the start of the Angelic War and 3249 for when Nimue woke up? I don't have my books handy here at work, but those dates don't seem to give enough time between the launching of Operation Breakaway and Pei's nuke.

Explicitly in the case of the wakeup, and the first meeting where one of the archangels warns of trouble coming, and then says later "Although I warned you only a few days before that new challenges might await you, not even I expected this... The Archangel Shan-Wei has fallen"

I think we can take that as the start of the War against the Fallen.
[edit] You are right that the time frames seem do seem too short, and I have no idea how RFC reconciles them. [/edit]

fallsfromtrees wrote:By "the wakeup" do you mean the Day of Creation? David has told us that a considerable amount of time (many decades) passes between the Day of Creation and the day that Pei sets off the nuke (which is the start of the Angelic Wars). You can tell this because the Adams already have grandchildren and many have already died of old age. [edit]Correction: some of their children have died of old age. The Adams themselves had Federation medical nanites and lived a couple centuries.

Sorry by wakeup, I meant when Nimue wakes up in the cave. That date is given explicitly as 1 Oct 3249.

fallsfromtrees wrote:Sorry by wakeup, I meant when Nimue wakes up in the cave. That date is given explicitly as 1 Oct 3249.

Ah! Okay.

Unfortunately, there is a problem with that date. This is the problem that David discussed, where somehow the number of years between Pei's nuke and Nimue's waking got changed from 825 to 750 years. The infodump that Drak quoted tells us that Nimue woke in 890, 906 Terran years after the end of the Rebellion. The Rebellion ended Terran 16 years after Pei's nuke. Nimue actually woke in 3324 AD, not 3249.

SWM wrote:

fallsfromtrees wrote:Sorry by wakeup, I meant when Nimue wakes up in the cave. That date is given explicitly as 1 Oct 3249.

Ah! Okay.

Unfortunately, there is a problem with that date. This is the problem that David discussed, where somehow the number of years between Pei's nuke and Nimue's waking got changed from 825 to 750 years. The infodump that Drak quoted tells us that Nimue woke in 890, 906 Terran years after the end of the Rebellion. The Rebellion ended Terran 16 years after Pei's nuke. Nimue actually woke in 3324 AD, not 3249.

I understand now. I was unfamiliar with the FAQ - need to go read that again.

fallsfromtrees wrote:

SWM wrote:Ah! Okay.

Unfortunately, there is a problem with that date. This is the problem that David discussed, where somehow the number of years between Pei's nuke and Nimue's waking got changed from 825 to 750 years. The infodump that Drak quoted tells us that Nimue woke in 890, 906 Terran years after the end of the Rebellion. The Rebellion ended Terran 16 years after Pei's nuke. Nimue actually woke in 3324 AD, not 3249.

I understand now. I was unfamiliar with the FAQ - need to go read that again.

Don't worry--I had forgotten that detail myself. I knew that there was a mixup in times, but I had forgotten it pushed forward the Terran date of Nimue's awakening.