Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Arvegil145]

Can a moderator merge this entire thread with http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=19550 ('Tolkien's final First Age timeline')?

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

The flexibility of 7000-8000 might make it more workable. I will have to take yet another look... What we really need is an interactive timeline where you can select your assumptions. I bet I could do that, too.

Obviously I am working on this. Here is the link to view the current version, though only the first tab ("Options") is currently interactive. I don't know whether, as a viewer, you'll be able to use the drop-downs and have the list of milestones update; let me know?

This... might actually resolve the heirs of Finwe? Using the 'latest assumptions' answer to each question, I get the Aman years as about 6500. Per per XVII.3(1), the average age of marriage is 36, ie 1800 SY. Per AAm, the first child comes after about 200 SY, and then more maybe at 200 SY intervals. If we do a Tolkien and use all of that directly, we get a timeline that almost works:

0: Finwe arrives in Aman
200: Feanor born.
400: Findis born.
600: Fingolfin born.
800: Lalwen born.
1000: Finarfin born.
2200: Maedhros born.
2400: Maglor born.
2600: Celegorm, Fingon born.
2800: Caranthir, Turgon born.
3000: Curufin, Aredhel, Finrod born.
3200: Amrod & Amras, Argon, Angrod born.
3400: Aegnor born.
3600: Galadriel born.
4800: Idril born.
5000: Celebrimbor born.
5200: Orodreth born.
5500: Melkor unchained.
6500: Death of the Trees.

The youngest generation are all adults, but not of marriagable age. If Fingolfin marries or has kids later than normal, we could sync Turgon and Finrod's births back up. To give Aredhel and Galadriel the same birth year will always require a huge gap in Fingolfin's children, but we've already established he's being a bit weird about things.

Galadriel remains far older than Tolkien wanted her to be, though: she's 43 life-years at the Return, which is somewhere late-thirties "mortal equivalent". Tolkien wanted her to be 20 growth-years, = 60 SY. Still, that's the only major hole in this version.

hS

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Obviously I am working on this. Here is the link to view the current version, though only the first tab ("Options") is currently interactive. I don't know whether, as a viewer, you'll be able to use the drop-downs and have the list of milestones update; let me know?

There's now a second tab, "Interactive Timeline", which shows everything I've integrated so far. Currently it has no way to rearrange rows or do any sort of error checking, so there's at least one option that breaks hilariously. I will try to integrate more of the points we've got different approaches to.

hS

[Huinesoron]

Hmm, well. The Interactive Timeline is now filled out, with everything from my latest timeline except for a couple of speculative birth years in the pre-Finding era. But Google Sheets won't let me give you the ability to select options without also giving you (and anyone else who wanders through) the ability to delete the entire thing. I'm going to have to turn it into a website to make it work.

For now, though, the "Interactive Timeline" tab shows my best setup using the BBC figure of 7500 years between the separation of the Nandor and the fall of Morgoth. The children of House Finwe do, in fact, work! The only exception is Galadriel, who as ever is impossible to fit to her two latest facts: "older than the Silmarils" and "not an adult at the Exile". We just have to make do.

hS