Timeline of Major Events on
Pern
Where the dates come from
last update: 9/11/99
According to the DLG, Pern has a year lasting 362 days, with a leap year every 6 Turns. Events in Moreta strongly suggest the Turn is broken into 12 months lasting 30 days apiece; the two extra days are added in at Turn's End for celebrations (re: DE/RSR). The UK editions of Dragonsdawn say that there are 13 months lasting 28 days, but this doesn't match what's said in Moreta, and it post-dates many of the books which were probably also written with a 12 month calendar in mind. So I'm using 12 30-day months.
To determine the years during which events occurred, I used a combination of the clues in the books themselves (for the year of the pass or interval) and the timelime of passes/intervals given in the Dragonlovers Guide to Pern. Eventually I'll explain more about why I feel the timeline in DLG is correct.
To determine the month and
day of events, I'm currently relying on the timetable presented by Karen Wynn
Fonstad in the Atlas of Pern for the first seven books (i.e. the 7 published first,
Dragonflight through Moreta). I have great confidence in how she
figured out dates of events which were not specifically given in the texts, because she
explains her logic in detail and it looks reasonable. However, she does translate
dates directly from Pern to our calendar, which causes a discrepancy.
Our new year and Pern's are not the same--on Pern they celebrate the first of the year as
the winter solstice, which is 12.21 in our calendar. And from time to time I think
that Fonstad placed a few events incorrectly, or picked a date too specific for what
the text says. In these instances, I use what seems more reasonable to me from the
texts, and to try to match between different texts.
This makes the dates she gives for Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and the Harper
Hall novels slightly wrong (10-11 days late). I will eventually try to
translate these dates to the correct ones, but it will take quite a while before I have
time to untangle them.
Dates from White Dragon and Moreta should be correct as the books give
specific dates to events.
The timing of events in Masterharper of Pern was tricky to determine, because the book has many internal time discrepancies. I've untangled it to the best of my ability, and will eventually add notes explaining where/why discrepancies occur and why I chose the dates I did, but you'll have to give me some time...
The same applies to Dragonsdawn, although discrepancies are much fewer. I started them at Turn Zero, because Threadfall is always said to start in Turn 8, which is said to be 8 Turns after landing. If one begins with Turn One, then 8 Turns later is Turn 9. And the span of 8 years from landing to fall is also reliably established because Ram Da Andiyar-Telgar is 7 at 1st Fall, and he was not conceived until a few months after landing.
I have now redone all the dates for Dragonflight, building my own timeline from the text itself, then ironing out inconsistencies (there were several) and keeping it consistent with Masterharper of Pern. Finally for specific dates for events where only a season in indicated in the text, I trusted Atlas as a guideline. The Atlas, however does mis-date some events.
Notes keyed to specific events/dates
| D1:1 | D1 first says that Pass ended 2 months ago, later says nearly 4. Lessa was there one month (though the Atlas erroneously has her there 2+). Lessa was ill for some weeks before recovering, and the decision to jump forward was made and carried out quickly after several days worth of meetings. The Atlas places the end of the Pass in the 2nd month, but nothing in D1 supports this. I'm assuming that Thread ceases about the same time of year that it begins in the 9th Pass, and decided that the Pass was over for 3 months. This allows the dates to fit nicely with the 7.5 visit by the Masterharper, which comes from data in MHoP. |
| D1:2 | Time from MHoP, fits D1 data okay, where it is said to be 19 Turns before Hath flies Nemorth. |
| D1:3 | Lessa was 11 when Fax took Ruatha, so her birth year is most likely 2484 (but could be late in 2483) |
| D1:4 | Time from MHoP, fits D1 data okay. Although F'lar was supposed to have been with Mnementh for 20 Turns in 2505, he could just have been rounding that number up from 17. |
| D1:5 | F'lar is said to be 19 in D1 at this time. This fits known dates in MHoP, where this event is not specifically described. D1 gives two conflicting times for this, 10 and 15 Turns before 2508. This dates puts it 14 years prior, which could have been rounded to 10 or 15. The 14/15 year gap fits much better with F'lar's Impression date--with the 10 Turn gap, he would have been 9 (at most; 6 at smallest) Turns old at his Impression! |
| D1:6 | said to occur in early spring this Turn |
| D1:7 | started exactly 10 Turns before start of 9th Pass |
| D1:8 | F'nor states in 2508 that Southern Weyr had been abandoned for 6 Turns. |
| D1:9 | It is early spring. No other specific date clues given. I choose this date which is 10 days after Atlas says--because the Atlas places the winter solstice 10 days before Turn's End. This date preserves the Atlas dating, while correcting the calendar used in the Atlas. |
| D1:10 | F'lar comes to Ruatha three days after Lessa's dawn wakening. |
| D1:11 | It is the next day because of the five hour time zone difference. Late night at Ruatha is early morning in Benden Weyr. |
| D1:12 | It is autumn (because Ruatha is sending the fruits of it's harvest). Date adjusted from Atlas |
| D1:13 | It is 1-2 months after R'gul's orders |
| D1:14 | The Atlas fits this date and the mating flight date by the seasonal weather, and the normal time between the two. I think the time gap was slightly underestimated, and lengthened it several days. |
| D1:15 | Five weeks after clutching is when hatching usually occurs. |
| D1:16 | Again, dates are adjusted from Atlas. |
| D1:17 | Atlas places Lessa's return a day later, but it is clearly dusk of the same day. This also is more consistent with Threadfall being predicted 4 days after the first fall, and the day after the Weyrleaders conference. The Atlas introduces an inconsistency by placing her arrival one day later and having Fall on the same day as the conference. |