I was recently given the assignment of figuring out what year it is in the Island universe. I knew of two places to look: the Museum in NewHome, and the Watcher's autobiographical story. This is what I found. . .

The documents in the museum have these dates:
February 11, 2072 - First David Abraham journal entry.

March 7, 2072 - Last journal entry.

September 14, 2074 - Memo from Professor Woodcock, expedition to "Island Four".
References "EMP bombs detonated this spring".

June 11, 2075 - Memo from Professor Kempton, references Woodcock expedition.

That means that the creation of the Drive was at the very beginning of March, 2072, and awakening of the network must have happened in the spring of 2074. However, the Watcher story has these dates:

July 21, 2072 - Watcher has brain hemorrhage.

Midnight, morning of April 2, 2075 - network became intelligent.

That appears to be a disagreement of about a year. I used the April 2, 2075 date in my wiki entry, keying off the Watcher's story.

Now, we don't know how long it took for the Island to be turned into Improbable Island, the reality show. I was going to estimate dates based on the day that the server came online with the pilot, when Season One began, etc, but given the year's discrepancy already, I decided against that level of detail. And I see that others have estimated the current Island dates to be anywhere from 2080 to 2082 in their wiki pages. And then of course there's the three-days-to-one issue to keep track of.

So. . . silly to worry about all this, right? I know. But I am genuinely curious now - what date is it? CMJ, what say you?

You know what? Never mind. It happens that the calendar for 2082 is the same as the calendar for 2009, and that's so very convenient that I'm just going to use 2082 and ignore the 3:1 days ratio.

I'd say it might be about 2089 or so. Give or take a couple years.

*looks up at the title of the page*

Well I always went for the 2108/2109 date to be the current one, leaving it up to CMJ to maybe eventually hopefully explain what exactly happened in that huge timespan in between.

Since the Show is likely being directed from outside, I always assume dates, especially in wiki entries, to be Off-Island Time (which goes like this: 1st May 2109 Day Three II Time equals 1st May 2109 and whatever timezone that time is in.)

Oh, look at that! Never noticed that before. Hmm. So that means that the watcher is. . .

at least fifty? Wow, she's holding up well.

Look at that, indeed. Good eye, Sicpuess.

But, um.

Hm. This still leaves discrepancies.

---

BARK BARK BARK.

Well, the show could have been running for a while before we came to it...
I'm guessing that it's been running for at least a couple of years, due to the popularity (as everybody seems to be watching it, and it has its' own theme song...).
Plus, you can't expect a 17-year-old girl to be running an entire T.V. network, no matter how brutal she can be.
Also, the entire civilization would have to collapse, and then get rebuilt, as the super-computer which controlled EVERYTHING electronic got destroyed.
A 59 year old Watcher? Now that I can imagine controlling the network.
So... it kind of makes sense, I guess...

I made the Enquirer graphic before I set down the Island's timeline. Ignore it.

The War on Improbability was officially declared in September 2075. The Network - by which I mean a shorthand for all Internet-connected equipment with a central processing unit, including computers, televisions, mobile phones, Googles et cetera - announced its sentience on the 1st of April that year, choosing the date so that people would initially believe it to be a hoax (its reasoning being that if people thought it was a joke, they'd be more likely to think "Yeah, but it'd be awesome if it was true" and less likely to take action against it). Season One was a total reboot of the pilot episode (canonically in the "official" plot we pretend the Pilot didn't exist - players of course can interpret that however they like), and Season Two will do likewise.

@Hermein - yup, I've screwed up the dates in The Watcher's story. It's a year off. And the Network becoming sentient is a day off. I think. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go back and fix that at some point.

The actual Island date today, however - well, we've got the margin of error of how long it was before the war was turned into a TV show, how long until The Watcher became The Watcher, et cetera. I don't really want to pin it down any more than saying that The Watcher is in her thirties, because she'll become a much more major character in S2 and I don't want to paint myself into a corner by having the player encounter her at , say, 35 when - using the 6:1 game day ratio and assuming the player triggers the plot element missions after we've been running a few months - the player might do the math and figure that she must be at least forty.

For The Watcher to be in her early thirties, you'd be looking at about 2090ish, give or take. Yes, the War on Improbability has been going on for a stupidly long time, as wars with daft motivations often do.

I think the day is correct; it became sentient on April 1, and the EMP bombs were triggered at midnight in Britain, just seconds into April 2. Hermein's story ends at 7:00 PM April 1 on the East Coast of the US, to line up with that. At least, that's how I wanted it to work. . .