Dresden Files: Series Timeline

[Tami Seven]

I did so yesterday.

Always one step ahead of me, and everyone else. 

[Serack]

It certainly gives us a tidy age range! While we don't yet know exactly how old she was when her mother died, that WoJ makes me believe she was no older than her early teens, so she was likely born sometime between 1797 and 1810.  What most interests me is that this means she and Luccio are close to the same age.

Chronologically, but Margret is likely to have spent some time in the fast lane like Rashid, and thus younger than the years that have passed since she was born.

[Retrosteve]

Might be worth adding to the timeline, along with the Luccio Entry, "Circa 1800" a mention of Margaret's Birth.

I'm a newbie here, so please treat me gently.  Apologies if this isn't the right place to bring this up.

We've had several tidbits stating how wizards live a long time but don't stay young and pretty as they do so. Harry, at 38, already notices that he looks older than Thomas. From the way Harry describes the older wizards and their ages, it looks like they age near-normally up to about age 40-50, then slow down their aging drastically afterward, stretching their decrepitude for another 2-3 centuries.

Luccio mentions that she hasn't had menses or felt much sexual desire for over a century.

By that measure, her contemporary Margaret LeFay at 100 should have gone through menopause about 40-50 years ago, and should not be giving birth, right? She might be a perfectly-healthy woman of apparent age around 65.

If this is right, it doesn't fit with her bearing Thomas and Harry when she does. Is there any way she could have been born a few decades later?

[knnn]

If this is right, it doesn't fit with her bearing Thomas and Harry when she does. Is there any way she could have been born a few decades later?

Hey Retrosteve, welcome to the forums.

Regarding the of Maggie Sr., we have a WoJ (Word of Jim) that Maggie "cheated" (i.e. spent time in the NN where the timeflow is slower), so her biological age might well have been much less.

[Second Aristh]

I'm a newbie here, so please treat me gently.  Apologies if this isn't the right place to bring this up.

We've had several tidbits stating how wizards live a long time but don't stay young and pretty as they do so. Harry, at 38, already notices that he looks older than Thomas. From the way Harry describes the older wizards and their ages, it looks like they age near-normally up to about age 40-50, then slow down their aging drastically afterward, stretching their decrepitude for another 2-3 centuries.

Luccio mentions that she hasn't had menses or felt much sexual desire for over a century.

By that measure, her contemporary Margaret LeFay at 100 should have gone through menopause about 40-50 years ago, and should not be giving birth, right? She might be a perfectly-healthy woman of apparent age around 65.

If this is right, it doesn't fit with her bearing Thomas and Harry when she does. Is there any way she could have been born a few decades later?

Welcome to the forums Retrosteve.  Usually discussions like this happens in the DF Spoilers section here.  The Reference Collection is generally kept as somewhere for people to look up facts and archived theories for use in the spoilers section discussions.

That being said, in the DV it's important to make the distinction between date of birth and age.  With her extensive travels in the NN where time flows inconsistently, Maggie Sr.'s biological age is distinct from the time lapsed on Earth since her birth.

Edit:  Oops, knn beat me to it.

[Retrosteve]

Okay, so she Rip Van Winkled herself as a young woman. Attended weekend parties in the Nevernever and popped back out 40 years later to find everyone else much older. Yeah, that makes more sense.  Thanks.

Now I'll keep out of the reference sections.

[Lawgiver]

Since we're talking dates... in TC, as Eb is escorting Harry out after the action is done, they're talking about who's getting the open position on the Senior Council.  Eb makes a comment regarding Langtry, saying,

"He's never been easy to read. And I've known him since I was sixteen years old.

TC, Ch. 49.

Eb could not have been born much if any later than 1738.  This comes from

a. His admission to Harry in TC that he first met Langtry when he was sixteen, (Ch. 49), combined with
b. JB's comments that the two of them were on opposite sides of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and
c. JB's indication that Eb is roughly 250 years old.

If Eb were only sixteen at the beginning of that war then he was born no later than (1754 - 16)= 1738.  The older he was at the start of the war, the earlier his D.O.B.

The 1738 year would put him at 276 as of SG (2014) and thus 252 as of SF (2000), which seems pretty close to the bull's-eye to me.

Would an addendum in the Timeline between

1731 (269 BSF): Aleron LaFortier is born.

1754 to 1763: The French and Indian War. According to Jim, this was an eventful time in Ebenezer’s life!

posting 1738 the latest reasonable date of Eb's birth be reasonable?

[Quantus]

Looking at Wikipedia, Krakatoa happened in 1883, so either Jim was mistaken about Eb's getting the Blackstaff, or there's some time-shenanigans going on (not completely crazy, since it sounds a little like what might have happened had the "banefire" gone off).

Either way, this seems to have been one of the first missions of Ebenezer as Blackstaff (perhaps the one in which his predecessor died?).

Good catch.  In BR Eb claimed credit for Tunguska (1908),  New Madrid (1811-1812, 1895, or 1968), and Krakatoa (1883).  In the case of Krakatoa I guess it's possible that he did something to destabilize it that resulted in a delayed eruption a couple years later.  But my inner child is hoping for Time Travel (because Time Travel!)

[AndiSue]

• CON: Butters assures Harry that he's vaccinated against smallpox, but routine vaccination of the American public stopped in 1972 after the disease was eradicated in the United States.
  

Someone (or even I) may have already said this, but I was born in 1974, in the United States, and I had the smallpox vaccination (and I have the scar to prove it).

[Priscellie]

• CON: Butters assures Harry that he's vaccinated against smallpox, but routine vaccination of the American public stopped in 1972 after the disease was eradicated in the United States.
  

Someone (or even I) may have already said this, but I was born in 1974, in the United States, and I had the smallpox vaccination (and I have the scar to prove it).

I'm not suggesting that people born after 1972 couldn't have been vaccinated, but at a time when Butters barely knows Harry, he states "You're vaccinated" with zero hesitation whatsoever. It's Butters' certainty that causes me to pause over that detail.  Unless Butters assumes Harry is a few years older than he really is (maybe the same age as Murphy?), I'm considering it a conflict.

[Priscellie]

And ack! I realized my statement "works with Knight Rider timeline" is no longer accurate. I made note of that in the timeline before Ghost Story was written, and in Ghost Story Harry states that he was 13 when the show was on.  I didn't notice when I was betaing that in order for that detail to fit, Harry would've had to have been born between 1968 and 1973, which directly contradict the David Copperfield stage name timeline. 

An easy retcon/explanation could be that Harry was watching Knight Rider reruns, but I'm not sure if the show did reruns on Fridays in 1987-1988.

[Mr. Death]

I'm not suggesting that people born after 1972 couldn't have been vaccinated, but at a time when Butters barely knows Harry, he states "You're vaccinated" with zero hesitation whatsoever. It's Butters' certainty that causes me to pause over that detail.  Unless Butters assumes Harry is a few years older than he really is (maybe the same age as Murphy?), I'm considering it a conflict.

It wouldn't be that off an assumption -- as Professor Henry Jones, Jr. once said, "It's not the years, it's the mileage." Harry's been through a lot, it wouldn't surprise me if people tended to assume he's older than he actually is.

(Doesn't even have to be that -- could be his manner and old-fashioned-ness. When I was a Freshman in HS, people thought I was a senior because of how I spoke; Sophomore year, someone mistook me for a teacher for the same reasons. I once very nearly got served whiskey at 16 when I jokingly ordered it. I could go on.)

[Simon Hogwood]

I'm not suggesting that people born after 1972 couldn't have been vaccinated, but at a time when Butters barely knows Harry, he states "You're vaccinated" with zero hesitation whatsoever. It's Butters' certainty that causes me to pause over that detail.  Unless Butters assumes Harry is a few years older than he really is (maybe the same age as Murphy?), I'm considering it a conflict.

Don't smallpox vaccinations leave distinctive scarring? I forget the exact context of Butter's remarks, could he be referring to that?

[Priscellie]

Don't smallpox vaccinations leave distinctive scarring? I forget the exact context of Butter's remarks, could he be referring to that?

They do, but Butters hadn't had any opportunity to see Harry's arms at that point.

[Tami Seven]

And ack! I realized my statement "works with Knight Rider timeline" is no longer accurate. I made note of that in the timeline before Ghost Story was written, and in Ghost Story Harry states that he was 13 when the show was on.  I didn't notice when I was betaing that in order for that detail to fit, Harry would've had to have been born between 1968 and 1973, which directly contradict the David Copperfield stage name timeline. 

An easy retcon/explanation could be that Harry was watching Knight Rider reruns, but I'm not sure if the show did reruns on Fridays in 1987-1988.

I can't find proof, but I am fairly certain that Knight Rider did rerun after it ended. Reminds me of how I remember being a big fan of the original Star Trek, even though I was only about 4 or 5 when it ended. I used to watch it on reruns in the early 70's.