

I was wondering, in the anime on the 4th episode "Bloody History", they refer
to some period of time called the "Dark Age". I was wondering (maybe the
people that can read the original Japanese Novel can respond this better) what
exactly was meant by the "Dark Age"?

I tried to figure what the Dark age was and while searching for that answer, I
approximately transcribed (from the subbed english version) when the False
Minoshiro talks about that. In that scene he approximately says:

> The turning point for Japan was when "Boy A" committed a series of crimes.
> He realized he could use his PK powers and open the most difficult of locks.
> “A” broke into the bedrooms of 19 sleeping women, assaulted them and
> eventually killed them. At this point Saki and her friends couldn’t
> comprehend how a human was capable of killing other humans. Even after his
> arrest people continued to use PK to commit crimes. It became a weapon for
> terrorists. It split society into a complex mix of opposing political,
> humanitarian, and ideological factions… ...and the world entered an era of
> war, unlike any known before. Ironically, the constant threat to the lives
> of PK users led to a dramatic evolution of their abilities. **Meanwhile, the
> human population plummeted worldwide, until it was less than 2% of what it
> it’d been at its height. These events serve as an overview of the Dark Ages
> that lasted five centuries**.

From that, I concluded that around 2011 A.D. society was something very
similar to what we have now (with cars, iPhones, airplanes and normal
technology). Then people with PK caused a war and for that reason, human
population suffered a terrible decrease to 2%. Then this era lead to a war and
then to an era where northeastern Asia divided itself into four distinct and
irreconcilable units:

  * 1st, Slave Dynasties, Where PK users controlled those without PK capabilities.

  * 2nd, non-PK users who escaped the Dynasties and lived as hunter-gatherers.

  * 3rd, Bandits who used PK to attack other settlements. 

  * 4th, a group of those who managed to preserve some remnants of the technological age.

Then we have the present time where Saki and the others live.

My question is, which time period does the "Dark Age" correspond to?

Is the following time scale correct?

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/U6yhI.png)

Or is the Dark age before the dynasties/division of asia age? Also, what is
known about the dark age?


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-07T23:01:04.173
9570
2020-06-03T18:39:21.307
2014-05-07T23:06:49.023
3269
3269
question
from-the-new-world
What does the "Dark age" mean in Shin Sekai Yori?


> My question is, which time period does the "Dark Age" correspond to?
>
> Is the following time scale correct?

Your timeline is correct. The Dark Ages correspond to the period following the
PK wars during which the slave dynasties held power (in northeastern Asia,
anyway). In more detail:

  * Ismailov conducts his experiments in 2011, leading to the creation of the first psychokinetiker.
  * Psychokinetikers and ordinary people coexist peacefully, if uneasily, for a short time - perhaps a year or so? The exact duration isn't made explicit.
  * Boy A and people like him start using PK to commit severe crimes, prompting the formation of powerful anti-PK movements worldwide. In response, PK users band together. Some of the groups of psychokinetikers become heavily radicalized and commit acts of terrorism.
  * The PK wars begin. The war effort is particularly effective in the US, which almost manages to wipe out all the psychokinetikers within its borders (PK users decline from 0.3% of the population to a mere 0.0004% of the population - a few thousand people at most). 
  * Faced with this grave threat to their existence, the few remaining PK users develop tremendously strong PK in a short period of time. Using their newfound strength, the psychokinetikers topple every standing government on the planet. 

The collapse of all governmental structure marked the beginning of the Dark
Ages, so named because - like the "original" Dark Ages that followed the
collapse of the Roman Empire - little was known about it. The "new" Dark Ages
lasted roughly 500 years. During this time, global communication networks
collapsed, and so little was known about what was going on elsewhere in the
world. The slave dynasties rose and fell, eventually leading to the rise of
Saki's society.

> Also, what is known about the dark age?

Unfortunately, there isn't much known, what with it being a Dark Age, and all.
In the novel, the false minoshiro does go into more detail about the four
groups (and I can update this answer to include that information if you'd
like).

That said, our knowledge of the Dark Ages begins and ends with the false
minoshiro. The Dark Ages were hundreds of years out of living memory by Saki's
time (even for telomere-manipulators like Tomiko), and it seems that all
record-keeping was effectively delegated to the libraries - that is, the false
minoshiros. It seems very likely that if you were to ask the people of Kamisu
66 about the Dark Ages, they would know virtually nothing about it - perhaps
not even that the Dark Ages _happened_ at all.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-08T10:57:35.953
9583
2014-05-08T13:57:58.270
2014-05-08T13:57:58.270
1908
1908
9570
answer


Something I would note, some of the initial PKers were also just literally
going crazy from having their perceptions unlocked and opened. Imagine no
filters, and suddenly your aware of every other human beings thoughts and can
hear radio frequencies in your head, I believe they were literally just
snapping and lacked any sort of control until the time they learned to come up
with self imposed limitations and control elements for raising children to be
to live with abilities that can alter reality without causing as much
problems.


CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-06-03T18:39:21.307
57799
2020-06-03T18:39:21.307
53663
9570
answer