Time Frame From Ultima I to SotA

So some folks may be wondering.. just how long was it between Ultima IX and present day SotA? Is there a way to even figure it out?

Answer? Yes there is.

Now you're probably thinking "whoa wait a minute! There's no way" Portalarium certain isn't giving us a number. On what basis do we have to even begin to figure this out.

Well it's rather simple actually.. well, almost simple. According to Ultima lore, time moves at a different rate between Earth and Brtiannia and that people age according to the flow of time on their home world. Now, we know of at least one person who has existed consistently in Britannia all this time. Lord British.

Lord British, being the counterpart of Richard Garriott. Follow me so far?

Ok granted.. we do not have a precise timeline to work from.. but what we can do is extrapolate a reasonable approximation of the difference in the flow of time based on Richard's real world age when two Ultimas were released and the known number of years to have taken place between those two games. Take Richard's age now and subtract the years we can account for.

Whatever remains is the approximate number of years unaccounted for. Make sense?

To run through the known timeline real quick.. (CHRONOLOGY of Britannia)

Akalabeth (aka Ultima 0) (1980) - Lord British drives Mondain from Sosaria
Stuff Happens
Minax is born..
11 years pass.
More stuff happens..
Ultima I.. (1981)
"Several years" (10 ish?)
Ultima II (1982)
Approximately 20 years pass
More stuff happens.
Ultima III (1983)
Year 0000
Ultima IV (1985)
At this point we get more exact.. so I'll skip quite a bit..
Year 356
Serpent Isle (1993) > Pagan (1994)> "Centuries pass" > Ultima IX (1999)
Unknown stuff happens.
SotA.

I don't remember exactly how old Richard was when Akalabeth came out but it was in high school so let's say 18.. he's 52 now.. and was 37 in 1999.

If we just wanted to go from Ultima IV to Serpent Isle since those are the years more accounted for.. we could say that 356 years passed in Britannia for 8 years on Earth or 44.5 Britannia years = 1 Earth year.

Come to think of it.. do we even need Richard's age for this? lol Might have gotten a little ahead of myself there but this idea is based on the idea the Richard IS Lord British as he is for the sake of SotA lore.

The more years we can account for the more accurately we can work this out. Going back to what we assume from Ultima I.. we can add 41 years.. and say 397 years in Britannia for 19 Earth years. Gives us a 30 to 1 ratio.

I know that's a wide range but it gives us something to work with. Going with 30 to 1.. since Ultima IX was in 1999.. and assuming launch of EP1 in early '16.. there's a 17 year difference.. or 510 Britannia years.. subtract the 400 we can account for..

110 years from Ultima IX to the end of the Cataclysm..

With the 40 to 1 ratio it would be.. 280 years.

So we could probably safely assume some time between 100-300 years, give or take.

 

Lol this is why I love reading your posts Bowen, you always find unique and interesting tidbits of lore that I can geek out to!

 

I've found I really dig geeking out on lore. lol

 

Wait.. is Lord British a vampire in this scenario? Or is this more a Chronicles of Narnia situation?

 

You and me both, especially Ultima lore. To me, Ultima 7 was so mind blowing in the depth and detail given to a living, breathing world and all the lore surrounding it. Something by today's standards somewhat common, but back then...incredible!

 

If i'm understanding your question right Selene, it's more like a Chronicles of Narnia scenario, but still very different. As Bowen mentioned, LB being from earth didn't age as quickly while he was in Britannia. As time moved slower on Earth in comparison to Britannia. That's why he is able to live as long as he has.

 

But in Ultima IX LB was rather old whereas in SotA he looks way younger....

 

He got some cosmetic work done in the Future when he was General British in Tabula Rasa...

 

Yeah that's just one of those little irreconcilable conflicts we like to ignore. OR.. maybe that isn't the REAL Lord British? The REAL Lord British might have been locked up in the dungeon.

 

It's amazing what a good plastic surgeon can do these days lol

 

Maybe he only just looks older because of the stress of working for EA?

 

Or he looks older since having kids??

 

Well in today's R17 Post Mortem Richard claimed the time ratio in years is 1 to 26.

I'm sorry but that's quite impossible as it conflicts with other statements made. He's also said the time span between IX and Shardfall is 2-4 centuries..

Here's the problem and for this we do need to go back to Richard / Lord British. Even if we say the release dates of the games aren't a factor.. Richard would've still entered Sosaria in his High School Years.. it's been 35 years now since that time. 35 x 26 is 910 Britannia years.

910 - 356 from IV-VII - 400 years from Cataclysm til now.. is only 154 years.. while that may account for the 0-III years.. it cannot account for the 2-4 centuries between IX and Shardfall. Richard is at least a couple hundred years short. It does give a little more legitimacy to leaning towards a 30-35 to 1 ratio though with some small adjustments.

 

It was probably adjusted down for easier accounting moving forward. With the idea of in game holidays and astronomical alignments, 30-35/1 divides a lot less evenly than 2 weeks= 1 year

 

The year is 2015, which means the Rejuvination clinic exists, LB has access to it, heard there's a sale going on you can also replace two organs of your choice, Doc chose spleen and liver.

 

Game mechanics make a very poor foundation for lore. It doesn't matter what the time scale in-game is. Players will perceive time as it related to their character differently. If I log out for 2 weeks.. there's not a single player anywhere in-game that's going to think I was gone for an entire year by any stretch of the imagination.. and no one is going to RP that way.

To compound that issue.. it should take literally days to walk anywhere on the overland map. Yet we can walk from run from Ardoris to PaxLair in one or two in-game hours. One simply cannot base a timeframe on game mechanics. It's fundamentally flawed.

 

I wasn't saying it was the right call to make; I merely meant that it was probably an intentional choice based on ease of accounting and not an oversight. For instance, if there are certain holidays in the game where you might get a certain bonus, it's easier to know it'll come once ever 14 days instead of once every 10.4 days.

 

Well, there are two possible explanations for this Yes, he could be an imposter, as Bowen mentioned. The other most frequently given is that he appeared aged in Ultima IX because his youth was tied to the health of the land (Britannia), which, as you recall in Ultima IX was pretty darn bad (As for his renewed youth, it could have returned slowly as the land recovered after The Great Cataclysm - or he was healed slowly through some other means - i.e., within a healing pod in my story, The Avatar Chronicles I : Return of the Avatar

I am sure we will have the answer revealed to us by the developers...in time