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Originally Posted by Huinesoron
So! Excitingly, "adopt the AAm spacing of the dates" starts out really strong. Shibboleth tells us Miriel lived until Feanor was "full-grown"; the Statute tells us Finwe waited 12+12+3 years before remarrying; the latest life-cycles give (in Middle-earth) 3 years gestation, 72 years to full growth. So we will always need at least 72+12+12+3+3 = 102 SY between Feanor and Fingolfin's births.
The Final Timeline (rev 3), which maintains the AAm SY gaps between the Finwean births, says Feanor and Fingolfin are born 105 SY apart. Allowing 3 years for Finwe and Indis to actually conceive, that's spot on! Feanor grew up at a 3:1 speed, which presumably means a 144:1 speed once he hit 24.
Unfortunately that means Findis doesn't exist, unless she and Fingolfin were twins. Which... isn't impossible. Let's go with that.
Finarfin is born 383 SY after Fingolfin, making Fingolfin 26.14 at his begetting. That seems a long gap between children - but of course there's Irime to consider. If we assume an even split, Findis/Fingolfin and Irime would all be full-grown plus about 115 SY at the next birth; in other words, Finwe and Indis started planning the next child when the previous was an adult. (That's slighly longer than Finwe waited after Feanor, which probably only annoyed Feanor more: "you only gave me 30 SY! Why do they get a hundred?!")
There are 680 years between Fingolfin and Fingon's births; that makes Fingolfin 28.14 when he has his first child. That's a bit old, but not unreasonable, and he may have married late. Turgon is born when Fingon is 26.14; that's the first date which seems intractably late, but since the most usual pattern was to have only one child, Turgon may have been a late decision.
Finarfin was also 28.14 at Finrod's birth, and we know he married at 26.83. We're seeing a pattern here of "wait a VY after the last thing happened", whether it's your wedding or your previous child reaching adulthood; yet another reason for Feanor to be annoyed by his father's haste!
(EDIT: It's tempting to say that the generation of Fingon, Turgon, and Finrod are typically born when their older sibling is 26. Trouble is, despite only being 1 extra life-year, it means doubling the space between children. That would push all of Aegnor, Galadriel, and Argon past the Silmarils, and mean Galadriel was actually born 200 years after the Exile. Obviously we're not doing that!)
So... as far as it goes, the AAm timeline actually works. We would expect the full birth pattern of the House of Finwe (per the Shibboleth lists) to look like this:
- 3321 - birth of Feanor
- 3420 - marriage of Finwe and Indis
- 3426 - birth of Findis & Fingolfin
- 3617 - birth of Irime
- 3809 - birth of Finarfin
- 4001 - birth of Maedhros
- 4096 - birth of Fingon
- 4192 - birth of Maglor
- 4383 - birth of Celegorm
- 4480 - birth of Turgon & Finrod
- 4574 - birth of Caranthir
- 4671 - birth of Angrod & Aredhel
- 4765 - birth of Curufin
- 4862 - birth of Aegnor & Argon
- 4956 - birth of Amrod & Amras
- 5041 - creation of the Silmarils
- 5053 - birth of Galadriel
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First of all, before I make any other comment - I think you really should stress when a date is approximate or within a given range. And when dealing with such dates, I think maybe you ought to round them up/down to the nearest "pretty" number (ala 860, 865, 870, etc.; as well as the SY dates too).
With that out of the way:
I was thinking that, maybe, instead of keeping the relative differences between dates in AAm in regards to births, marriages, etc., we should keep their rough yet absolute difference
according to the old AAm conception of VY:SY = 1:9.582 - what I mean is this (these are of course just examples):
1) Let's take Feanor's birth as our cornerstone: FA 3321 according to the scheme (YT 1169 in the AAm)
2) Now take the birth of Fingolfin from AAm - YT 1190 (AAm) - which is 21 VY after Feanor's, so c. 201 solar years difference
3) Then take Finarfin's birth for example - YT 1230 (AAm) - which is 40 VY after Fingolfin's, so c. 383 solar years difference from that of Fingolfin's
...etc.
Now, if we take Feanor's birth as FA 3321, that means:
- the lower bound for marriage of Finwe and Indis is in c. 3423 (though - are you sure about the 12 + 12 + 3 years of waiting for Finwe?)
- Findis is born between c. 3423 and 3522
- Fingolfin is born in c. FA 3522
- Irime is born between c. 3522 and c. 3905
- Finarfin is born in c. FA 3905
- Fingon (YT 1260) is born in c. FA 4193
- marriage of Finarfin and Earwen is in c. FA 4384
- Turgon and Finrod (YT 1300) are born in c. FA 4576
- Aredhel and Galadriel (YT 1362) are born in c. FA 5170
- Argon is born sometime after c. FA 5170 (say, c. 5300 or something)
I'm not overly concerned about the large gaps between births of parents and that of children since this is Aman and everyone is indulging in pursuits other than child making all the time.
Anyway, I'm not that enthusiastic about my own proposal though since YT 1495 would end up as FA 6444! Well after the First Age ended according to the scheme.
EDIT: I forgot, why no Luthien? Or any events from YT Beleriand?
P.S. I'm not sure about the 'Men corrupted by Sauron' part however, since this is never mentioned again outside of NoME and seems to contradict the stuff in PoME.
Also, about that quote from the Athrabeth ("at the beginning of the history of our people, before any had yet died") - if we take it at face value, an important thing to note is that Men's original lifespan was c. 200-300, the same as that of the Numenoreans, at least according to a late (c. 1968) text:
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The life of the Númenóreans before their fall (the 2nd fall of Man?) was thus not so much a special gift as a restoration of what should have been the common inheritance of Men, [to live] for 200–300 years.
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- NoME, 'Notes on Ore', p. 223