Scribe Summit - What year are we in since the founding of Ar
Who thinks that now we are in the year 10'176 C.A.?
Who thinks that now we are in the year 10'175 C.A.?
The whole question of the conversion date for the year depends on establishing the cross-reference date.
Fogaban's website states that this year is 10'175 C.A.
It is not what the Gorean Measurement Converter tells us:
"Earth 2025-09-27 -> Gorean 3rd day 3rd week 7th month 10,176 C.A."
However, this converter states in a note:
"- it ships with year_adjust=+1 (to give the year used by Gorean Campus, Fogoban's year +1)"
which is set as default in the description of the Hud. Only if you delete that line in the description, you get
"Earth 2025-09-27 -> Gorean 2nd day 3rd week 7th month 10,175 C.A."
So the question arises: Is it now 10'175 or 10'176? Should we follow Fogaban or the Gorean Campus?
Let us have a look at the arguments:
Fogaban assumes that "Tarl begins his adventures of Book 1 in February, 1960" based on the assumption that book 2 was first published in 1967.
What we know:
1. The books do not mention Earth years like when Tarl Cabot went to Gor for the first or second time, but they indicate the months when it happens - always in February -, and the distance between his two travels of 7 years.
2. One Gorean date is mentioned in books 2 and 3: the arrival of Tarl Cabot at the Sardar mountains at the end of the month En'Kara 10'117.
3. Book 2 contains a comment of John Norman who pretends to be only the editor of the books, having never met Tarl Cabot himself but having received his manuscripts containing the accounts of what happened during his first stay at Ko-ro-ba and Ar, and then what happened during his second stay in Tharna, from Tarl's Earth friend Harrison Smith.
4. The first three books were published in 1966, 1967 and 1968, each time in December of that year.
I. For a start, let us determine on which GOREAN dates Tarl Cabot came to Gor.
What we know from the books is the following:
1. Adventures of Book 1 begin in February and Tarl returns to Earth 7 months later which would be in September.
2. Adventures of Book 2 again begin in February, 7 years after the first departure.
3. Tarl enters the Sardar Mountains "late in the month of En'kara in the year 10,117 from the founding of the city of Ar" This is mid-April on Earth, the beginning of the month of En'Kara being around the 20th of March.
Book 2 is quite precise about that date on which most of the argumentation depends.
Chapter 26 - A letter from Tarl Cabot, starts like this:
"Inscribed in the City of Tharna, the Twenty-Third Day of En'Kara in the Fourth Year of the Reign of Lara, Tatrix, of Tharna, the Year 10,117 from the Founding of Ar.
Tal to the men of Earth -
In these past days in Tharna I have taken the time to write this story. Now that it is told I must begin my journey to the Sardar mountains. Five days from now I shall stand before the black gate in the palisades that ring the holy montains. [...] I shall deliver this manuscript to some member of the Caste of Scribes whom I shall find at the Fair of En'Kara at the base of the Sardar. From that point whether or not it survives will depend like so many other things in this barbaric world I have come to love - on the inscrutable will of the Priest-Kings."
The 23rd day of En'Kara corresponds to April 11. So Tarl Cabot intended to arrive at the Sardar fair on April 16 10'117.
Side remark: It is interesting to note that according to this passage, the En'Kara fair does take place relatively late in the month of En'Kara - not at the beginning around March 20, as we have it in Second Life, but 4 weeks later.
Tarl Cabot's intention is realized in book 3, Priest-Kings of Gor:
"It came about late in the month of En'Kara in the year 10,117 from the founding of the city of Ar that I came to the Hall of Priest-Kings in the Sardar Mountains on the planet Gor, our Counter-Earth." (Book 3, ch.1 - The Fair of En'Kara)
We also know that the manuscript containing his account of what happened in Tharna gets indeed to Earth and lands on the desk of Harrison Smith some months later, in summer or autumn 10'117.
2. The other pillar to establish a cross-reference date is given at the start of book 2.
Book 2, published in December 1967, begins with "A note on the Manuscript" by John Norman who here pretends that Tarl Cabot really exists and had passed him the manuscripts in order that they be published.
"My friend, Harrison Smith, a young lawyer of the city, has recently given me a second manuscript, purportedly by the individual Tarl Cabot. It was his desire that I bring this second document, as I did the first, to the attention of a publisher.
This time, however, because of the numerous claims and inquiries generated by the first manuscript, Tarnsman of Gor, pertaining to various matters ranging from further alleged documentation for the existence of the Counter-Earth to disputes concerning the authorship of the manuscript, I have prevailed upon Smith to write something in the way of a preface to this second account, making clear his own role in these matters and telling us a bit more about Tarl Cabot, whom I have never had the good fortune to meet in person.
John Norman" (published in December 1967)
It is clear that at at this point, at the date when John Norman wrote these lines, Book 1 - Tarnsman of Gor was already published. It had come out (RL fact) in December 1966.
But we know more! The account of Harrison Smith which constitues chapter 1 of book 2, tells us not only when ms2 was transmitted to Smith, but also when and how ms1 got into his hands.
Let us have a look at that account by Harrison Smith that starts at the beginning, before Tarl Cabot's first travel to Gor 7 years before the second, so in 10'110 C.A.
"Book 2, ch.1 - The Statement of Harrison Smith
I first met Tarl Cabot at a small liberal arts college in New Hampshire [...]
To my consternation and that of the college, Cabot disappeared shortly after the conclusion of the first semester."
In the 1960's, the semester in New Hampshire colleges of this kind ended mid to end of January, and in his case it was end of January. There is only one such college in RL, namely Dartmouth college, for in all other colleges of this type, the semester ended mid-January.
"At the end of the semester, Cabot, like the rest of us, was weary of the academic routine, and was seeking some diversion. He decided to go camping - by himself - in the nearby White Mountains, which were very beautiful then, in the white, brittle splendor of a New Hampshire February."
The White mountains are in fact only a few hours from the college.
"I loaned him some of my camping gear and drove him into the mountains, dropping him off beside the highway. He asked me, and I am certain he was serious, to meet him at the same place in three days. I returned at the determined time, but he failed to keep the rendezvous."
Cabot remained disappeared and was not found despite the fact that a big rescue team searched the area.
"Yet, several months later, I understand that Tarl Cabot stumbled out of these same mountains, alive and well [...] He never returned to teach at the college. [...] Shortly thereafter I [...] left the college. I did receive a check from Cabot to cover the cost of my camping equipment, which he had apparently lost. It was a thoughtful gesture but I wish instead he had stopped to see me. [...]
It was almost seven years after I had known Tarl Cabot at the college when I saw him on the streets of Manhattan."
From then on, the encounters of Tarl Cabot and Harrison Smith take place in New York.
They then renew their friendship. "In the ensuing months, my studies permitting, we saw one another fairly often. [...] It was late one night, in early February, and we were drinking once more at that small bar in which we had had our first drink that incredible sunny afternoon some months before. [...]"
when Tarl Cabot gets completely "home-sick" for Gor and decides he has to go back there.
Harrison accompanies Tarl to his apartment where Tarl finally reveals himself "Then without speaking he went into his closet and emerged carrying a strongbox. He unlocked this with a key which he carried on his own person, and removed a manuscript, written in his own clear, decisive hand and bound with twine. He placed the manuscript in my hands.
It was a document pertaining to what Cabot called the Counter-Earth, the story of a warrior, of the siege of a city, and of the love of a girl. You perhaps know it as Tarnsman of Gor."
Harrison reads it until dawn and wants to leave to go home. Tarl announces that he wants to go to the White Mountains again, refusing to be accompanied. "I may not come back".
Harrison leaves and walks for some hours despite his fatigue, puzzled, then runs back to Tarl's apartment to find it empty. But the manuscript waits for him there with a note:
""For Harrison Smith, should he care to have it." Dismal, I left the apartment, carrying the manuscript which was subsequently published as Tarnsman of Gor. That and memory were all that I retained of my friend, Tarl Cabot."
Taken in by his career, he forgot about it all. There is no mention of passing the ms on for publication. Rather he forgets about the whole affair.
But ... "late one afternoon, after work, I returned to my apartment. There - in spite of the locked doors and windows - on a coffee table before the settee, was a second manuscript, that which now follows. There was no note, no explanation. Perhaps, as Tarl Cabot once remarked, 'The agents of the Priest-Kings are among us.'"
From this passage we may conclude that the first book was not published before the second manuscript arrived.
In any case, the first book was published only in 10'117 C.A., when Tarl went to Gor for the second time. So 10'117 must be 1966, the year of the first book's RL publication date.
The second manuscript then followed a year later in 1967, although it had been there already - but the note of John Norman to book 2 also explains why the publication might have been delayed.
When the ms3 of what happened in the Sardar was transmitted is not known. At the end of book 2, John Norman states about ms2 in "A Concluding Note on the Manuscript":
"The manuscipt breaks off with the letter of Tarl Cabot. There was nothing more. In the several months since the mysterious delivery of the manuscipt [hence several months after summer or autumn 1966, so probably beginning of 1967], no message, no further word, has been received. It is my surmise, if we may credit the narrative, and I am tempted to do so, that Cabot did indeed enter the Sardar mountains. I will not speculate on what he may have found there. I do not think it likely we will ever learn."
Tarl departed for Gor for the second time in February 1966, hence the first time - 7 years before - was in February 1959.
The difference C.A. to Gregorian count is thus 8'151
September 2025 is therefore 10'176 C.A.
Timeline
Gregorian Contasta Ar
1959 Jan End of Semester in New Hampshire college end of 10'109
Feb first days Harrison Smith drops off Tarl Cabot in the White Mountains with his hiking gear
Feb some days later - returns to get Tarl who disappeared several times - search group
March Arrival of Tarl in Ko-ro-ba
April/May Tarl Cabot steals the Home Stone of Ar En'Kara 10'110
Sept Return of Tarl Cabot to Earth - refunds the hiking equipment to Harrison Smith
1960-65 6 years during which Harrison Smith finishes his studies and Tarl writes down his adventures < ms1
1965 Autumn: Chance encounter of Harrison and Tarl in the streets of NY - many meetings follow
1966 Feb first days Tarl Cabot passes his ms1 to Smith who takes it with him and travels again to Gor
March mid-end Tarl wakes up near destroyed Ko-ro-ba and walks to Tharna
March/April Tarl's stay in Tharna
11. April Tarl writes ms2 and his letter 23rd day of 10'117
16. April Tarl arrives at the Sardar and passes ms2 to the scribes
Summer/Autumn ms2 appears on Smith's table
December Publication on Earth of ms1 as "Tarnsman of Gor"
1967 First months - John Norman writes "A Concluding Note on the Manuscript" published at the end of book 2
for now no news on what happened to Tarl Cabot
December: Publication on Earth of ms2 as "Outlaw of Gor"
1968 December Publication on Earth of ms3 as "Priest-Kings of Gor"
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