The Timeline

The dated arc, marked a draft on its own face: the Game opens at an autumn equinox; the three percent by the winter solstice; everyone invited within four years; Covenant and Jubilee at a winter solstice seven years out; then twenty years to regenerate the Earth.

The Game opens at the September equinox of 2026. The first three percent connected and empowered by the winter solstice that follows, if we are able. Everyone who desires it invited by 2030, with three years of formation for each. The Covenant and the great Celebration and Jubilee at the winter solstice of 2033 — or the day the last cohort has crossed, whichever comes later. Then twenty years to regenerate the Earth; and after that the Story continues into worlds and ages nobody now living will see (The First Three Percent, Covenant, 20 Year Generational Contingency).

Three things about it are as important as the dates. It is a draft and says so. Its conditionals are real — if we are able, or the day the last cohort has crossed — and they are the difference between a plan and a prophecy. And the dates hang on the sun rather than on a calendar anyone owns, which is why they can be kept by people who share nothing else (The Clock of the Game, The turnings).

It is load-bearing because a body with no dates cannot be late, and a body that cannot be late cannot learn. Naming a moment makes the gap between intention and reality measurable, which is uncomfortable and is the point. The first marker on this arc is already recorded as missed, and the arc is better for saying so (Honesty about time, The gap, Milestone).

It must be read as an estimate and never as a measurement, and never as a promise made on anyone else's behalf. Of its markers only the Jubilee is carried elsewhere in the canon with any weight; the rest are one page's proposal. A timeline held as prophecy becomes the thing people defend instead of the Goal (Do Not Concretize the Absolute, The 3 Year Lag).

Also called: the arc · the draft timeline Stands on: The Plan · The Clock of the Game · Milestone Opens onto: The First Three Percent · Jubilee · Covenant · The Three-Year Formation · 20 Year Generational Contingency · The 7 Year Window of Crisis and Opportunity · Honesty about time · Regeneration · Temporal markers apart from milestones In play: Home · beyond — on the wall of the big room, with the spending of its slack shown Sources: The DNA of Heaven, Part XI (Fable synthesis; the page marks the Timeline a draft) · LIØNSBERG Mission Control.md (wiki root; the same markers on the wall) · Covenant and Jubilee — December 2033 (wiki) · lionsberg.wiki: The First Three Percent Open: Only the 2033 Jubilee is carried elsewhere in the canon; the other markers are asserted in one place and nowhere derived. · The first marker is already missed, and nothing states what a missed marker does to the ones after it.