Calendars and Timekeeping

"Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem as eternity or pass in a flash, depending how we spend it." (Michael Ende)

Local Timekeeping
Ancient humans developed a calendar system based on the rotation of their home world on its axis, and the orbital rotation of the planet around its sun. When the first humans started to colonise their solar system, it was immediately acknowledged that this system would not work for people born on stations or other planets. This led to the production of a dual calendar system. Each planet, moon and station had their own local calendar, but all also recognised an ‘interstellar calendar’ based on the original Earth Calendar, which became “Human Standard Date” Today, Genevans no longer use this date, though it still maintains relevance on the original home world and ‘Terrans’ still maintain the calendar to this day.

The use of a home planet's rotation and orbit are not uncommon and the majority of species maintained their calendars in the same ways, the main difference being how soon after (or in very few cases before) their expansion into space, that the species adopted a different approach.

Not all species based their calendars on solar orbits:


 * The T’Qam’Gitwos calendar began based on the orbit of their home world's moon, separated depending on whether the moon was waxing or waning in the sky.


 * The Gri Calendar was based on the intervals between powerful storms that regularly occur on the home world.


 * The Hurtugduvnquich recount periods of time in comparison to the length of time mythical figures had taken to read particular sacred text. For example, the high priest Lorikdnkaritt Jukarntu Greb Umagnarlyt went into the great library and the planet rotated on its axis 17 times before he finished reading a text. In typical Hurtugduvnquich fashion, this time period is not shortened.


 * The Jyr-Gredgi calendar is largely based on rotations for ‘days’ and ‘years’ but they have a higher level which is sacred to them, and drives much of their culture. Their mythology contains reference to the first Jyr-Gredgi to achieve the status of alpha predator on their planet, after a battle with a mythical race of demons. The battle lasted for 1,470 days (roughly 1200 days on Earth) and is how long Jyr-Gredgi expect to fight any new race they encounter.

Officially the UNITI recognises each species rights to maintain their own internal calendars, but requires member races to attribute “Day” to the planetary rotation and “Year” to solar orbits relevant for each planet. Some species, such as the Hutchii, have found this to be a convenient replacement for their previous systems and have wholly adopted such terms for their own calendars. Species will have different local terms for periods of time, but phrases such as ‘weekend’, ‘season’ and ‘month’ are not recognised as part of the UNITI standard and therefore unique to either a race, or a specific planet or even province. Inhabited planets in the UNITI rotate on their axis, taking the equivalent of between 8 Earth hours and 304 Earth days. Orbital rotation around local stars can be as quick as 240 Earth days or as long as 18 Earth years. Whilst the UNITI recognises the rights for local calendars, even if requiring common terminology, there was also a recognition that a standardised calendar would need to be introduced. Luckily the Unified Alliance Government had already a system in place, which could be adopted by other species, and has with little resistance.

UNITI Standard Date Time (USDT)
Whilst labelled UNITI Standard Date Time, the origins of the galactic calendar were invented on Earth. When Earth helped form the Commonwealth of Species, Earth’s voice was one of the most powerful, and by the time further organisations evolved from the Commonwealth, the Standard Date Time was recognised as the only inter-species calendar system, and became the natural system to be deployed. The Galactic calendar is based on the perceived rotation of the Milky Way Galaxy. Estimates judged that the galaxy rotates on its axis in 225,000,000 Earth Years. Dividing the complete rotation into a single degree would still leave a time period of 625,000 Earth years: too long for any practical date system to be deployed. However, mathematically separating the angle further, into a ‘centri-arc-second’ or 1/360,000 of a degree, brings the date down to approximately 633 Earth days. This is referred to as a Galactic Tick. The Tick is separated using standard decimalisation. A 1000th of a Galactic tick corresponds with roughly 15 Earth hours, resulting in a Galactic Day. Using this system galactic dates are written as a six digit number, with a decimal in the middle.

Galactic Ticks use a point of origin, based on a significant date in the human calendar. The start point is October 2nd 1608, when Earth astronomer Hans Lippershey filed the patent for the first telescope. The original version of this calendar simply started at 0, but since this date had little significance for other races, some of whom were even in space at this time, the dates are reversed at this origin point and written with a negative symbol.

Smaller Time Increments
Whilst the Galactic Calendar is marked as 6 digits, further decimal places are added to denote smaller increments as needed, representing (on the old Earth scale) roughly 91 minutes, 9 minutes, 55 seconds, 6 seconds or half a second when you get to .00001 - generally the only purpose for going smaller than this is for scientific experiments. These smaller increments are rarely used since most conversations regarding time happen with people of a common background, and the preference is often for the local calendar references to be made.