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Carrying on with the things the Count draws from from the previous post, I present the Timeline of the games that Countdown works off of.

Credit goes to Count’s co-creator, AppleDavidJeans, for his incredible work.

See below.

[SPOILERS] My timeline of the Horizon series

This is my constructed timeline of the Horizon series. As this was made for the purpose of ascertaining Aloy's age in the Horizon series, this isn't a universal timeline; only events pertaining to Aloy and significant game events are included.

Sources:

u/Northman86 for his post which inspired me to expand upon it and craft this timeline. I eventually ended up reworking everything however, but ended up with the same conclusion as him.

Bentham for his video. I used his time graph's dates for events relating to the Extinction Signal. This also explains the narrative mistake I refer to in Entry 36.

How this timeline is formatted: Date - Event(s) - Justification/discussion

October 2064 - Faro Plague Starts - Series of holograms at top of FAS tower in in Makers End (HZD).

November 2064 - Project Zero Dawn starts; Operation Enduring Victory begins; GAIA created - FAS tower at Makers End and ZERO DAWN facility under Sunfall (HZD).

mid-November 2065 - Atmosphere becomes inhospitable to human life - "Biosphere Degradation" datapoint (HZD).

January 16, 2066 - GAIA goes live at GAIA Prime; Operation Enduring Victory concludes; Dr. Sobeck sacrifices herself - Several datapoints at the ruins of GAIA Prime (HZD). For all intents and purposes, Dr. Sobeck died the moment she ended her last transmission to the Alphas inside GAIA Prime.

February 2066 - All exposed human populations extinguished - "Biosphere Degradation" datapoint (HZD).

February 2, 2066 - Ted Faro purges APOLLO database and kills the Alphas - Hologram datapoint in Control Room of GAIA Prime (HZD). GAIA mentions exact date in her conversation with Aloy at the RCC after being resurrected (HFW).

March 2066 - All macrobiotic land life extinguished - "Biosphere Degradation" datapoint (HZD).

Early 2068 - Extinction of marine life; end of life on Earth (for now) - “Biosphere Degradation” datapoint (HZD).

March 16, 2326 - First inhabitants of ELEUTHIA-9 region released from ELEUTHIA-9 facility - Directly recorded date in “Operations Log” datapoint in ELEUTHIA-9 facility (HZD).

January 13, 3012 - NEMESIS sends Extinction Signal from Sirius - Extrapolation by Bentham from given date of GAIA’s death (8/26/3020) and time signal took to travel to Earth (8.611 years) (HZD/HFW).

August 26, 3020 - Signal received; GAIA dies; Aloy conceived; HADES sends signal back to NEMESIS; Derangement begins; Hekarro takes the Grove - Directly recorded date in “Operations Log” datapoint in ELEUTHIA-9 facility (HZD). Effects of signal discussed in “GAIA’s Dying Plea” hologram datapoint in same facility. Hekarro’s taking of the Grove was same day as “bolt of blue from the east,” mentioned in his first conversation with Aloy (HFW).

April 4, 3021 - Aloy's birth - Directly recorded date in “Operations Log” datapoint in ELEUTHIA-9 facility (HZD).

October 3021 - Aloy naming; Start of HZD timeline - Very first cutscene of HZD. Teersa says to Rost: “Have six months not passed since we trusted her to you?”

Late 3025 - Beta's birth - Based on assumption that Zeniths started gestating Beta the moment they intercepted the return signal from HADES and realized that they still have a chance on Earth. An exact date cannot be calculated since it is unknown precisely when the Zeniths arrived on Earth, but assuming an arrival date of 1/1/3040 and an identical gestation period of 221 days to Aloy yields a birth date of 10/24/3025. Since Earth arrival date is unknown, I put an uncertainty of 2 months on this date. This analysis is a simple straight-line calculation that does not factor in relativistic effects or the position-time profile of the Odyssey's journey to Earth. You are welcome to try and factor relativity to give a corrected date of birth.

3027 - Aloy falls into ruins and decides to train for the Proving - The tutorial quest of HZD mentions she is six years old at this point.

April 7, 3029 - HADES’s return signal received by NEMESIS; NEMESIS learns that HADES failed, stops transmitting signal, and sets off for Earth. - Extrapolation by Bentham from given date of GAIA’s death (8/26/3020) and time signal took to travel from Earth back to Sirius (8.611 years) (HZD/HFW).

November 17, 3037 - Extinction Signal transmission ceases on Earth - Extrapolation by Bentham from calculated date NEMESIS received HADES's return signal (4/7/3029) and time the cessation of the signal took to travel to Earth (8.611 years) (HZD/HFW).

April 3039 - Proving ritual and massacre; Aloy goes after Proving killers - The Proving is for 18-year-old contestants. Aloy states the night before Proving day in a conversation with Teersa that she has been shunned for 18 years. As such, Entry 19 provides NET bound. Entry 20 provides NLT bound. After the Proving, Aloy and the Nora track down and dispatch the killers at the Proving. This would take no more than a week to complete. On top of that, Aloy may choose to aid various Nora around the Sacred Land, adding time before she leaves for Meridian.

April 4, 3039 - Aloy turns 18.

April 3039 - Aloy leaves Sacred Lands for Meridian; Dervahl’s plot foiled - The sequence of events according to canon is this: Aloy leaves Sacred Lands > Aloy arrives in Meridian > Aloy goes to Eclipse dig site to find Olin > Aloy goes to Red Ridge Pass and determines Ersa is alive > Aloy and Erend attempt to rescue Ersa > Aloy confronts Dervahl in Meridian and foils his plan > Aloy goes to Makers End. This sequence is established based on the comic Liberation. The following facts can be gleaned from the comic’s setting: 1) Ersa is dead and Meridian is saved. 2) Aloy knows where Makers End is but hasn’t visited it yet. The above facts help establish the correct sequence of events mentioned in the first paragraph. The entirety of the Dervahl questline is completed before Aloy sets off to Makers End.

NLT April 24, 3039 - Aloy enters Makers End - When Aloy gets past the gene-locked hatch at FAS headquarters, a synthetic voice announces that she (or rather Dr. Sobeck) is 355,510 days (about 973 and a half years) late for her meeting with Ted Faro. The atmosphere went bad in mid-November 2065, by which point the FAS headquarters would have been abandoned. If Dr. Sobeck’s meetings with Faro are monthly, then the next missed opportunity would be in mid-December 2065, so adding up to 7 days to 355,510 days from 12/15/2065 yields 4/24/3039.

May to July 3039 - Bulk of HZD story; Events of Frozen Wilds (anywhere from April to July 3039) - This involves Aloy going to various ruins and enemy locations to learn about her powerful connection to the past. This gets interspersed with side quests. The timing of this bulk is somewhat corroborated by the two “Record of Redmaw” datapoints at the Hunters Lodge in HZD. The events of the Hunters Lodge questline and the aforementioned datapoints indicate that the questline starts in the spring and ends in the summer, which comports with Aloy’s first arrival at Meridian in May 3039 (a spring month), since the questline becomes available only after arriving in Meridian. The Frozen Wilds story happens sometime between May to September 3039, given that the expansion is playable between the time Aloy leaves the Sacred Lands for Meridian and the Battle of the Alight. A more exact timing cannot be pinned down since Aloy could undertake the adventure at any time she chose, and the dialogue in the DLC would reflect her current main story progress. As to the duration of Frozen Wilds, I estimate based on size of map and the available quests that it probably takes two weeks to finish.

NLT June 30, 3039 - Northern Quen expedition makes landfall at San Francisco - In Aloy’s conversation with Bohai and the Ceo when she arrives at Legacy’s Landfall to enter Thebes, Bohai mentions the expedition (the northern half of the expedition) had made landfall “almost a year ago.” Almost a year ago would have been 10-11 months, and Aloy entered Thebes no later than end of April 3040, thus an NLT date of June 30, 3039 is established for when the Quen made Landfall.

July 3039 - Horizon Call of the Mountain begins; Aloy enters the ZERO DAWN facility under Sunfall; Aloy tied up at Sunfall; second attack on the Nora; Aloy discovers the reason she was born; Aloy journeys to the ruins of GAIA Prime - These events happen in rapid succession, as Aloy has to hurry back to the Embrace to stop the Eclipse from annihilating the Nora and blocking her access to the Sacred Mountain. This date for entering GAIA Prime can also be corroborated by Sylens saying to Aloy while inside his workship there that the mountain blew up "Nineteen years ago," which comports with the date Aloy's gestation began. Horizon COTM happens during her journey to Sunfall after crashing the Eclipse Focus network as when she departs from Ryas, she says she has "business with the Shadow Carja in Sunfall."

July 3039 - Battle of the Alight; End of HZD timeline - This can be inferred from two things: 1) The events of HZD arguably take only a few months to complete (as HZD is not a big map compared to the real world and Aloy can get around on horseback, cutting down on travel time), and 2) Given the time skip of 6 months between HZD and HFW, fixing the start of HFW in January 3040 as stated in Entry 27 also can be used to backdate the Battle of the Alight.

July 3039 to January 3040 - Aloy absence from Meridian - When Varl reunites with Aloy at the Far Zenith launch facility in the opening quest of HFW, he says that it has been six months since Aloy left abruptly the night she defeated HADES. The dates of this absence are bounded by Entries 25 and 27. The following events happen during this time: 1) Aloy visits Dr. Sobeck's grave at the latter's ranch in ancient Carson City, Nevada, 2) Sun-King Avad ends the Carja Civil War by starting an uprising among the inhabitants of Sunfall, who take back the western palace for him. 3) Talanah runs into Aloy while on a contract for the Lodge, as depicted in the comic “The Sunhawk”. 4) Regalla starts putting together her rebellion against Hekarro.

December 21-31, 3039 - HADES recalled from the Spire - This date can be justified by Marad’s dialogue with Aloy and Varl when they return to Meridian. In this dialogue, Marad informs Aloy and Varl about a mysterious event at the Spire that happened after the Battle of the Alight. The event was Sylens calling HADES from the Spire. Marad states that the event happened “right after the solstice.” While it is not said which solstice he is referring to, there are two possibilities, bracketed in by Entries 21 and 33: • Summer 3039 – Unlikely given that it happens so soon after Makers End. • Winter 3039 – Best candidate by process of elimination. The timing of her absence anchored by this solstice makes the best fit by not unrealistically compressing the HZD and HFW timelines. Of the two, the Winter 3039 solstice (on or about December 22, 3039) is the best candidate. Given that the event happened “right after the solstice”, it therefore can be pinpointed that HADES was retrieved in the last third of December 3039.

NET January 4, 3040 - Start of HFW timeline; Varl reunites with Aloy at Far Zenith launch facility; Aloy returns to Meridian; Embassy at Barren Light (week after Aloy returns to Meridian) - Since HADES’s transmittal happened after Aloy’s departure from Meridian and before her return after six months, given that the transmittal happened near the December 3039 solstice, it can be safely concluded that the events of HFW start sometime in the first half of 3040 (from January to end of June). This could be narrowed down further (albeit with less certainty) as Marad also says that he “sent forth hunters for weeks” after the event at the Spire and before Aloy’s return. Given that he says weeks instead of months, this implies that the removal happened closer to the end of Aloy’s absence rather than the beginning. Assuming that “weeks” probably means a period of between 3 to 6 weeks, Aloy’s return to Meridian happens in January 3040. The return must be no earlier than January 4, as Sylens says in his datapoint “Interrogation Log” at the Horus near the Proving Lab that he took 12 days to interrogate HADES, by which time Aloy was still unaware of his ruse. Aloy did not find out what he did until she arrived at the Spire, which meant that by January 4, Aloy was still not in Meridian. The 12 days are dated from 12/23/3039, the day after the December 3039 solstice, and the earliest Sylens could have taken HADES. As to the Embassy, the ascertained timing is from Marad’s dialogue at the Spire stating “indeed the next embassy will take place in a day or two.” Varl also says the Daunt is only a “couple days of hard riding” away from Meridian. Thus the Embassy originally is supposed to happen essentially on the same day as Aloy’s arrival, although events involving the workers at Chainscrape likely delay things for up to a week.

NET January 17, 3040 - Aloy’s mission at the HADES Proving Lab - While an exact date cannot be pinned down, it is probably on or near the NET date mentioned above, to give room for the events mentioned below. When Aloy meets HADES at the Proving Lab, in one of the dialogue options, HADES states that Sylens left the lab 12.8 days (round up to 13 days) prior to Aloy meeting HADES. Adding that to the (at minimum) 12 days it took for Aloy to realize what Sylens did yields a no earlier than date of January 17, 3040. Given HADES’s potential existential threat to Earth (even if it was already hollowed out by Sylens, Aloy doesn’t know that until she arrives at the lab), it would make sense for Aloy to make a beeline for the Proving Lab to take care of the threat as quickly as possible.

February 3040 - Aloy’s journey to Plainsong; Mission into Cauldron TAU; GAIA resurrected; Clock starts ticking on Earth’s biosphere - Aloy’s arrival at Plainsong and GAIA’s resurrection happen on the same day. The timing of this sequence depends on the nature of the injuries Aloy sustained in her escape from the Proving Lab. From research online, it seems that the healing time for broken ribs is about a month, so Aloy remains in Stone’s Echo for about that period. Plus, there must be time for Varl and Zo to rally the Utaru to force the Chorus into session. However, this is certainly a timespan where Guerrilla would take some artistic liberty and shorten. Once GAIA is resurrected, at this point, she says that the biosphere will cross a point of no return in approximately four months, with the reunion of DEMETER, POSEIDEN, and AETHER only adding a “few [(estimate 3 or 4)] months more.” Her resurrection sets a deadline of end of September of 3040 for going to GEMINI to cap

February to April 3040 - Recovery of AETHER, POSEIDON, and DEMETER - This constitutes the bulk of Aloy’s time in the Forbidden West, interspersed with various side quests.

April 4, 3040 - Aloy's 19th birthday - Having her 19th birthday after Aloy reboots GAIA appears to be in agreement with a conversation between GAIA and Aloy at the Base where GAIA mentions Erend wanting to throw a surprise birthday party for her, which Erend probably wouldn’t have suggested if Aloy already had her birthday when Erend joined the squad at the Base.

NLT April 26, 3040 - Aloy's mission into Thebes to retrieve Omega clearance - This can be inferred from the datapoint “Reactor Report”, which is in the very same place. The datapoint says the reactor had been operating for 50,844 weeks (about 974 and a half years) by the time Aloy entered Thebes. Ted Faro started construction of Thebes in late November 2064 (according to the HFW datapoint “NDA Motherload”), a few weeks after he realizes the world is ending. As of June 1, 2065 (the date that the “Intel Update” datapoint was written or published), Thebes was still under construction, possibly implying that the reactor hadn’t gone online yet as of that date. The reactor had to have come online sometime between that June 2065 date and the day he killed the Alphas (February 2, 2066). The most probable time for the reactor going online is sometime between end of October 2065, when Dr. Sobeck mentions in her journal on October 31st, 2065 that Faro slinked away to Thebes, and mid-November 2065, when the atmosphere became inhospitable for humans, according to Entry 3. Ted Faro would have locked himself and his companions/harem inside Thebes by the latter time, which meant the reactor would have been active by then. Adding 50,844 weeks to 11/15/2065 yields 4/26/3040.

Mid-May 3040 - GEMINI; Regalla’s second assault on the Grove; Attack on Zenith base; End of main HFW timeline - I chose this to happen at least half a month after Thebes because I figured there needs to be time for Aloy to mend her relationship with Beta and to do a couple companion side quests before the big mission to Gemini. I estimated that this would take at least half a month to do. In the cutscene that takes place when Aloy returns to the Base after Gemini, Aloy tells the others to start final preparations for the attack on the Zeniths, warning them that “it won’t be long before we take the fight to the Zeniths”, implying that the events of Gemini to Singularity happen in rapid succession. This is somewhat corroborated by the cutscene that happens after Singularity, where Aloy talks about “these past few months.”

Mid-October 3040 - Hypothetical earliest date when Nemesis might know the Zeniths to be dead - In Entry 33, I put down the Zeniths as having died in mid-May of 3040. Nemesis left for Earth on April 7, 3029, and is assumed to be arriving no earlier than May of 3041, according to Entry 37. Radio signals (which, since they fly at the speed of light, are the fastest medium information can travel from one place to another) can travel no faster than the speed of light. Hypothetically, Nemesis might be listening to a radio signal from the Zeniths from Earth and might surmise they are dead if the signal ceases because the Zeniths died. Straight-line graphing of Nemesis’s journey to Earth and the propagation of the cessation of the hypothetical radio signal and calculating their intersection point yield a date of mid-October 3040 for when Nemesis might learn that the Zeniths are dead. Nemesis however will continue to Earth because it wants to kill all of humanity.

January 3041 - Events of Burning Shores (no more than a week and a half); End of overall HFW timeline - When Aloy returns to the Base after Gemini, she discovers that Zo is pregnant with Varl’s child. This was in May of 3040, given Entry 34 above. Since pregnancy tests do not exist in the New World, Zo must have been with a child for about a month before realizing it, so in no more than 8 months, by the end of January 3041, she will have given birth to her child. In her datapoint that she leaves behind after Aloy completes the Burning Shores, “The Long Season Ahead,” she makes no mention of having given birth, so the assumption is that by the time Aloy comes to visit her after Burning Shores, she is still pregnant. In the flashpoint scene with Seyka at the end of Burning Shores, if the player chooses the Fist option, Aloy will state that “this [the events of HZD and HFW] has been my life for two years.” This implies that the events of Burning Shores take place close to the two-year anniversary of the Proving massacre, where her mission began. She could have been rounding up or down when making that statement, thus Burning Shores takes place no earlier than January 3041. As stated above, Burning Shores happens while Zo is pregnant, so it happens no later than January 3041 as well, thus Burning Shores happens sometime in January 3041. The entirety of Burning shores takes place in a very small map compared to the main map of HFW, allowing for shorter travel times. On top of that, Aloy’s main means of traversal in the Burning Shores are the Sunwing and the skiff, which decidedly are quicker than traveling on foot or horseback. Thus, the events (as well as the side quests) probably take no more than a week and a half to complete.

April 4, 3041 - Aloy's 20th birthday.

3041 to 3042 - Horizon 3 begins; Nemesis arrives - There is scant evidence from which to derive a start date of Horizon 3. It cannot be earlier than November 3037 because nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, and it yet again cannot be earlier than April 3041 because obviously Earth has plot armor on for now and Nemesis isn’t there yet wreaking havoc on Earth. As to a no-later-than date, two things: 1) Nemesis must know that the longer it lingers in space, the more time the Zeniths have to make an escape and disappear into the great beyond, so it must be pushing its spaceship’s pedal to the metal as much as possible. It is unknown how much time the Zeniths need to gather their needed resources from Earth before disappearing, but if I were to be generous and say three years, then that will be what I will go with here. Because of Guerrilla’s narrative mistake with the duration the Zeniths took to reach Earth, it is unknown when exactly they arrived on Earth, but I derived that Aloy enters the Forbidden West in Q1 3040, and the Zeniths were operating on Earth by then, so let’s say January 3040 at minimum. That gives Nemesis an NLT date of end of 3042. 2) A datapoint left by Beta in the Base after Singularity suggests that GAIA will have the biosphere stabilized within a year before Nemesis arrives. That thus most likely rules out anything before May 3041 (A year from the Singularity quest) as dates when Nemesis might arrive. Horizon 3 is likely to begin earlier than that as Aloy, Sylens, and company must prepare for Nemesis and cannot afford to be caught sleeping when it arrives. I therefore estimate that Nemesis will arrive sometime between May 3041 and December 3042. Horizon 3 might start earlier than that for the reason mentioned in point 2 above.

TL;DR: I estimate Aloy and Beta to be 19 and 15* years old at end of Burning Shores, respectively.

*Due to the effects of special relativity, Beta aged slower in space than Aloy did. Assuming she was born in October of 3025 (Earth time) and the Zeniths took 28 years to journey to Earth and arrived on Earth by January 3040, this calculator shows that for a period of 169 months of space travel as measured on Earth, plus 15 more months on Earth to get to the end of Burning Shores, Beta would be 14 years and 9 months old from her point of view, not Earth time.

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