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Author Topic: I think GW has abandoned the idea of AD dating...  (Read 1543 times)

Offline Darknight

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I think GW has abandoned the idea of AD dating...
« on: June 17, 2017, 11:50:15 PM »
The understanding was always that the 41st millennium was 40,000 years after the birth of Christ - even if no-one remembered the name or who He was.

But now I get the impression GW might be abandoning that idea - or at least not referencing it. The background section in the new book begins with a statement that it's been 400 centuries since mankind set out into space.

Unless we are all Erich von Daniken and "ancient astronaut" on it, that's moving the dating system back about 2000 years . . . which neatly avoids the problem that the Gathering Storm was M41.999 and, therefore, the Indomitus Crusade was actually in M42 (year 41,000 and onwards). It is still "Warhammer 40,000" after all :)
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Offline Gankom

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Re: I think GW has abandoned the idea of AD dating...
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2017, 12:26:17 AM »
There was a post on another forum saying that in the new fluff, Girlyman has discovered that the Ordo Chronos, as well as other factions, have been messing with the timeline and dating system. Because if that, there's no sure way of actually knowing what the correct year is. I think he estimates that it's currently late 41st millennium, but that theres no way to ever know for sure.

Perhaps that has something to do with this?

Offline Sig

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Re: I think GW has abandoned the idea of AD dating...
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2017, 08:41:17 AM »
Not gonna lie, messing with the timeline is almost always a shitty plot device.

Offline Darknight

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Re: I think GW has abandoned the idea of AD dating...
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2017, 12:26:13 PM »
There is no mention in the book (so far, and I have read pretty much all the background in the new rules) of what "year 0" is. It was never something they made a great deal of - but it was always presumed to be the birth of Christ. Which, frankly, seemed odd - I can understand the use of that dating system for thousands and thousands of years, even by people who don't believe in Him (it is just a legacy system and one almost the whole world agrees on). But after something like the Age of Strife and the battles of the techno-barbarians? Well, you would think there would be different dating system - one stemming from the Emperor's interment in the Throne, for example.

Then again, how many people really need to know the galactic year? Local dating systems are probably far, far more important.

Not gonna lie, messing with the timeline is almost always a shitty plot device.

But they aren't playing with it for any reason I can see - they aren't (for example) saying it is the late M41 so the Gathering Storm didn't happen, or anything. So far as I can tell, it is just a mechanism so this isn't Warhammer 41K . . .

The other thing with the timeline of 40K is that time flows differently; Warp travel messes everything up, and the Cicatrix Maeledictum and the great storms lasted "for weeks or for centuries". I really think there *is* no normal temporal progression - perhaps deliberate to allow you to field whatever armies you like.

On another note... I can find no reference in the new rulebook to the destruction of Cadia. Its reduction to a wasteland, but nothing about actual destruction . . .
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Offline patsy02

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Re: I think GW has abandoned the idea of AD dating...
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2017, 02:19:53 AM »
Ive seen a picture of Cadia getting split in half.

Found it:

I agree with the inhumane treatment of animals.

Offline FR1DAY

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Re: I think GW has abandoned the idea of AD dating...
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2017, 12:52:26 PM »
looks pretty fucked to me!
There are 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack.

So why you complaining!

Offline patsy02

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Re: I think GW has abandoned the idea of AD dating...
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2017, 10:47:06 PM »
It'll buff out.
I agree with the inhumane treatment of animals.