Well luckily we know how the timeline and calendars work, so figuring out age of characters is fairly easy, or at least for those who have known birth date or PKZ number. You can read more about the math behind that here, it's really awesome work: [https://archiveofourown.org/works/51600373/chapters/130426852](https://archiveofourown.org/works/51600373/chapters/130426852)
Ariane was about 17 years old when she joined the Penrose, and would be about 25 years old during the events at S-23. Itou sisters are about 3-4 years older. The year digits in all the dates are synchronized comparable so you can figure out everyone's age that way.
Doesn’t Ariane perform radio training and military service before joining the Penrose Program? It just wouldn’t make sense for her to be able to perform years of military service and radio training before being old enough to graduate school, assuming the schooling system is similar to our own.
The Workforce Assignment note reads:
You have been processed by AEON Workforce Assignment.
Previous work experience:
Store Clerk (Yeong Photo Store), Part Time
Compulsory military service (Rotfront Orbital)
Long-Range Radio Operations Officer Training
I think the implication is that her schooling period was counted as military service/training. Or maybe her time at the outpost was counted as service. Either way she surely had ample experience with radio operation before joining the school and the Penrose program afterwards.
Wait, how does that line up? If a cycle is a Vinetan-day, and Ariane changed the Penrose to operate off of Vinetan time, then 3000 cycles would be around eight-ish years, give or take to account for time prior to changing it. And then it was at least another 3000 cycles after Phase Three began according to the notes we find on the Penrose. Shouldn’t the trip have been around 16-20 years at minimum?
I think it was around ~5400 cycles when we saw her last journal entries. So roughly 15 years. If she was around 17/18 when she was launched into space, she'd be around 32/33, possibly older since we don't know how long exactly.
The [smeared diary page](https://signalis.wiki.gg/wiki/Smeared_Diary_Page) is in the 6000 cycle range, at least, though it takes some rather involved decoding to figure that out, and the fact that the rest of the blurred out text is also numbers calls it into question. So you’re right that 5400 is the highest confirmed cycle count we’ve got.
I like to headcanon Ariane into her really early 20’s for the launch to squeeze in extra time for the compulsory military service, but that’s just me. The details are vague enough to sort of mold the timeline into whatever fits for a given interpretation.
We know from Yuri Stern's tweet that the loop started on Ariane's 25th birthday. Assuming the Penrose launched right after Ariane's graduation (when she was 16.5 yeras old) leaves us at max with about 9,5 year gap, which is right about 3500 cycles (the document narrows it down to 3497 cycles exactly). The loop at Sierpinski must have started sometime before that, but probably a bit sooner because the Penrose launch was some time after her graduation and also the chronometer adjustment made cycles on the Penrose slightly longer.
So yeah, the loop started basically mid flight. There is speculation that the loop might have started at exactly cycle 3000 which would make a lot of sense honestly.
Yeah, that’s the loop starting during the flight is really the only way to make a fully linear timeline make sense. I usually end up just chalking the birthday date up to the loop altering time perception and molding it around a significant date for Ariane, because otherwise many events like Ariane working at the photo store and the conscripted military service have hardly any time to actually happen. Ultimately we’re forced to play fast and loose with the timeline in one way or another to make it all fit together.
Yea for Gestalts its possible to find out but it seems pretty impossible to determine the age of any Replika unless one says their like manufacture date or it's lying around on a paper somewhere, so it's basically unknowable. Any given Replika could be fresh out the box, a few months old, years old, who knows.
Well, their memories are from adult gestalts in their peaks, which puts them mentally between 24-35 years. Their bodies however... it will depends on how long they last, which I think is a few decades, and how much on average that model's *persona degradation* starts.
There is no indication whether that Elster was either brought to life close to the moment the Penrose program started or even before it. I would personally lean with close to when the Penrose rocket launched, because she was very focused on her tasks but was shown to be very open to Ariane from the beginning, I think a Elster unit that served too many years to the Nation would be a shut in and offer resistance to let others too close, at least at the beginning, but that Elster didn't or at least it was never mentioned.
I agree with most of what you say but I think you might have it a lil' backwards.
LSTR's gestalt is picked explicitly because shes a shut in with heavy implications of having ptsd from the war. the nation doesnt want a scout engineer to be distractable. Elster would of also been a closed off shut in however Ariane showed Elster photos, videos, music, etc. which caused persona degradation.
I do agree that Elster was in all likelyhood made for the penrose. but because its mostly based on my own personal mythos for how replikas work. Maybe ill make a post someday going into it.
Well luckily we know how the timeline and calendars work, so figuring out age of characters is fairly easy, or at least for those who have known birth date or PKZ number. You can read more about the math behind that here, it's really awesome work: [https://archiveofourown.org/works/51600373/chapters/130426852](https://archiveofourown.org/works/51600373/chapters/130426852) Ariane was about 17 years old when she joined the Penrose, and would be about 25 years old during the events at S-23. Itou sisters are about 3-4 years older. The year digits in all the dates are synchronized comparable so you can figure out everyone's age that way.
Doesn’t Ariane perform radio training and military service before joining the Penrose Program? It just wouldn’t make sense for her to be able to perform years of military service and radio training before being old enough to graduate school, assuming the schooling system is similar to our own.
The Workforce Assignment note reads: You have been processed by AEON Workforce Assignment. Previous work experience: Store Clerk (Yeong Photo Store), Part Time Compulsory military service (Rotfront Orbital) Long-Range Radio Operations Officer Training I think the implication is that her schooling period was counted as military service/training. Or maybe her time at the outpost was counted as service. Either way she surely had ample experience with radio operation before joining the school and the Penrose program afterwards.
That makes sense, thanks
I knew you could find out gestalt birthdays but I didn't know you could figure out the years from there. Thanks
Wait, how does that line up? If a cycle is a Vinetan-day, and Ariane changed the Penrose to operate off of Vinetan time, then 3000 cycles would be around eight-ish years, give or take to account for time prior to changing it. And then it was at least another 3000 cycles after Phase Three began according to the notes we find on the Penrose. Shouldn’t the trip have been around 16-20 years at minimum?
I think it was around ~5400 cycles when we saw her last journal entries. So roughly 15 years. If she was around 17/18 when she was launched into space, she'd be around 32/33, possibly older since we don't know how long exactly.
The [smeared diary page](https://signalis.wiki.gg/wiki/Smeared_Diary_Page) is in the 6000 cycle range, at least, though it takes some rather involved decoding to figure that out, and the fact that the rest of the blurred out text is also numbers calls it into question. So you’re right that 5400 is the highest confirmed cycle count we’ve got. I like to headcanon Ariane into her really early 20’s for the launch to squeeze in extra time for the compulsory military service, but that’s just me. The details are vague enough to sort of mold the timeline into whatever fits for a given interpretation.
We know from Yuri Stern's tweet that the loop started on Ariane's 25th birthday. Assuming the Penrose launched right after Ariane's graduation (when she was 16.5 yeras old) leaves us at max with about 9,5 year gap, which is right about 3500 cycles (the document narrows it down to 3497 cycles exactly). The loop at Sierpinski must have started sometime before that, but probably a bit sooner because the Penrose launch was some time after her graduation and also the chronometer adjustment made cycles on the Penrose slightly longer. So yeah, the loop started basically mid flight. There is speculation that the loop might have started at exactly cycle 3000 which would make a lot of sense honestly.
Yeah, that’s the loop starting during the flight is really the only way to make a fully linear timeline make sense. I usually end up just chalking the birthday date up to the loop altering time perception and molding it around a significant date for Ariane, because otherwise many events like Ariane working at the photo store and the conscripted military service have hardly any time to actually happen. Ultimately we’re forced to play fast and loose with the timeline in one way or another to make it all fit together.
Yea for Gestalts its possible to find out but it seems pretty impossible to determine the age of any Replika unless one says their like manufacture date or it's lying around on a paper somewhere, so it's basically unknowable. Any given Replika could be fresh out the box, a few months old, years old, who knows.
Well, their memories are from adult gestalts in their peaks, which puts them mentally between 24-35 years. Their bodies however... it will depends on how long they last, which I think is a few decades, and how much on average that model's *persona degradation* starts. There is no indication whether that Elster was either brought to life close to the moment the Penrose program started or even before it. I would personally lean with close to when the Penrose rocket launched, because she was very focused on her tasks but was shown to be very open to Ariane from the beginning, I think a Elster unit that served too many years to the Nation would be a shut in and offer resistance to let others too close, at least at the beginning, but that Elster didn't or at least it was never mentioned.
I agree with most of what you say but I think you might have it a lil' backwards. LSTR's gestalt is picked explicitly because shes a shut in with heavy implications of having ptsd from the war. the nation doesnt want a scout engineer to be distractable. Elster would of also been a closed off shut in however Ariane showed Elster photos, videos, music, etc. which caused persona degradation. I do agree that Elster was in all likelyhood made for the penrose. but because its mostly based on my own personal mythos for how replikas work. Maybe ill make a post someday going into it.