Setting Calanders---How does your world keep time?

[SDragon]

By the way, I think it's kinda funny that so many people seem to incorporate some sort of "leap day" concept in their calendars. Is there any reason for this, in the various settings? For me, it was simply a chance to add a bit of complexity to the calendar.

If you're making a calender that has the 1st month of the year alway have the winter solstace in it, leap days are almost always a nessecity.  If the orbit of your planet around it's sun (or the sun around the planet, as the case may be) so perfectly aligns with the time it takes for the planet to turn once on its axis that you never have an extra day that needs accounting for, then the calendar doesn't seem believable.

I don't see that as being so unbelievable, in a sci-fi setting. If you dismiss the requirement of the winter solstice being in the first month, all you need to do in our world is increase the length of a second  1.0006849315068493150684931506849 times (1:1.0006849315068493150684931506849 is the same ratio as 365:365.25, according to the calculator in this computer), and "reclaim" that extra six hours/year that we set aside to make leap days. Using the same idea of hyper-precise mathematics, you could even get every other unit of time measurement to be perfectly standardized.

Also, as has already been mentioned, a sci-fi setting includes the possibility of a world that just happens to have such perfect organization in the axle revolutions and orbital revolutions.

I know most of the settings here are fantasy, but we do have a few sci-fi settings, and even some settings based on more radical concepts as ring worlds and such, so why should we rule out the option of a perfectly standardized calendar?

[LordVreeg]

SD is right.  As long aas it rings true and has versimilitude for the players, it should be a good calendar 'mechanism'.

[Cantus]

I conceed defeat.  SD is right, I just didn't think it through as much as I should've.  

[SDragon]

I conceed defeat.  SD is right, I just didn't think it through as much as I should've.  

I wouldn't concede just yet. Your point of imperfections is still valid. I mean, both methods are conceivable, particularly in a sci-fi setting, but the perfect cycle seems extremely improbable, and the hyper-math would require commonplace devices that could measure with precision well beyond trillionths of seconds (something, I'm sure, Pope Gregory didn't have when he proposed his new calendar).

I guess my point was that it's certainly possible to have such a calendar, but your argument of imperfections show that it's improbable, which seems to be more important to verisimilitude.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

It also seems that india named the days of the week after the same planets, and unless I'm mistaken, so did the Chinese. This points to shared human origins, or at least that we're all sheep and think alike.

(After researching, the order of the days of the week in china, based on the planets, are sun, moon, mars, mercury, jupiter, venus, and saturn; the same as ours. It is the same in India as well. Thus, it seems, I can't really escape this order, but I do get to give them different elemental associations).

Xev, can you provide the names for the Indian (and Chinese) days? Or a link to your material if you found it online? I'm interested in that for my own work.

[limetom]

Retrograde motion[/url] or some other distinctive feature.  If a civilization has telescopes, or planets inside it's orbit are much more visible, the phases of such planets are also interesting.  From Earth, with a telescope, the Moon, Mercury, and Venus have complete phases, and outer planets have limited phases (Mars, for example, only goes into a partial crescent on either side.)

Also, I'd recommend anyone interested in this stuff to get Stellarium, an open-source planetarium.  It's pretty fun to even just mess around with, not to mention used by the University of Hawaii's Astronomy Department, among others.

[Stargate525]

A calendar, I've discovered, is an excellent way to screw around with numbers, if you're into that kind of thing.

For example, I quote part of my setting:

The Dilandri calendar is 360 days long, which is divided into fifteen months of 24 days each. Each month is further divided into four six-day weeks.

Each day is 25 hours long, fluctuating between 17 and 12 hours of daylight, depending on the season. Each hour is divided into 60 minutes, and a minute into 60 seconds just like normal earth.

As I'm sure most of you know, my setting is based on the number five, so why don't we explore the prevalence of this number...

360 days in a year= if you divide by five, you get 72, which is factorable into 8 and 9, or 3^2 and 2^3. Add the exponent to the base and you get... five.

fifteen months= three times five. If five is perfection, three, being midway between five and zero, signifies normality.

24 day month= 2*2*3*3*3 factors down into five prime numbers.

four six day weeks= surrounding five on either side.

25 hour day= 5 squared.

the minutes I'm considering bringing over to the five standard, but then I get the issue of having to deal with actual game effects...

[Snargash Moonclaw]

I went for relative simplicity, if it's complicated players will have trouble remembering and using it - a simple one requires some adjustment of basic inherent thought patterns utilized our entire lives, complicating matters exacerbates this. I hadn't thought of the realism of variance which Cantus points out, even though I deliberately included a slight variance between the orbit of the binary stars around their common gravitational midpoint axis and Panisadore's orbit around them - almost precisely the same but over the course of a 40,000 year cycle the smaller of the two suns seems to disappear behind the larger for about 10,000 years. (This has occurred twice in the known history of the world but few besides elves and Khurorkh realize this, other race only vaguely recall the second occurence, creating "ages" of the First Sun, Old Sun (refering to the presence of the smaller,) and current New Sun. That's not a part of what LV is asking here, but I'm kinda surprised that I didn't think of the normal results of variance on yearly calendars.

Anyway, here's mine:

[Snargash Moonclaw]

oops

[Snargash Moonclaw]

I went for relative simplicity, if it's complicated players will have trouble remembering and using it - a simple one requires some adjustment of basic inherent thought patterns utilized our entire lives, complicating matters exacerbates this. I hadn't thought of the realism of variance which Cantus points out, even though I deliberately included a slight variance between the orbit of the binary stars around their common gravitational midpoint axis and Panisadore's orbit around them - almost precisely the same but over the course of a 40,000 year cycle the smaller of the two suns seems to disappear behind the larger for about 10,000 years. (This has occurred twice in the known history of the world but few besides elves and Khurorkh realize this, other race only vaguely recall the second occurence, creating "ages" of the First Sun, Old Sun (refering to the presence of the smaller,) and current New Sun. That's not a part of what LV is asking here, but I'm kinda surprised that I didn't think of the normal results of variance on yearly calendars.

Anyway, here's mine:  

Code Select Expand

(Relatively) Standard Calendar for Panisadore.

1 Year = 403 days, divided into 13 months of 30 days + 1 intercalary holiday at the end of each month, named as follows:

Month:      (ending in:)
1.Sleeping
2.Waking
3.Flooding
4.Growing'
5.Gathering
6.Burning
7.Storming
8.Planting
9.Working
10.Waiting
11.Reaping
12.Singing
13.Freezing

Holiday:
1.First Stirrings
2.Rutting
3.Anointing (in Mud)
4.Flower Frolic
5.Bower Feast (Low Harvest Tide)
6.Oath Taking
7.High Sun Salute
8.Blessing of the Furrows
9.Festival of the Pavilions
10.Sharpening Day
11.High Harvest Tide
12.Grande Ovation
13.Mummers' Night

Each Month is divided into 3 weeks of 10 days each, named as follows:
1.Stillness (commonly observed as a day off of work/temple day)
2.Stone
3.Rain
4.Wind
5.Flame
6.Claw
7.Leaf
8.Sun
9.Moon
10.Star

Lunar cycles are:
Melanar Bloodmoon: 40 days
Surnest the Wanderer: 144 days
The calendar is Elven (Fehladurh) in origin (Khurorkh timekeeping was originally based on the cycles of Melanar Bloodmoon which also regulates the menstrual cycles of both '˜Orkhs and humans,) and is now in common usage by virtually all surface civilizations (If they speak Common then they're at least familiar with it.) Because of the axial tilt of the planet is less than that of Earth the temperate zones are broader than those on Earth. Given the binary suns the planet is also generally hotter. The monthly names reflect the seasonal changes in temperate zones primarily, where the time around the solstice is often too hot and dry for many crops. Hence there are often two growing seasons '" a short one in spring followed by a later autumn season. Winters are generally shorter and milder than Earth norm.

Days and dates are referred to by week (numbered) followed by day then month. For instance, '3rd Wind of Reaping,' which is abbreviated in writing as 3-4-11. Holidays are simply referred to by name and abbreviated as --#. Year numbering varies widely.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

24 day month= 2*2*3*3*3 factors down into five prime numbers.

2 x 2 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 108, not 24.... unless I'm missing something?

[Stargate525]

24 day month= 2*2*3*3*3 factors down into five prime numbers.

2 x 2 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 108, not 24.... unless I'm missing something?

sorry, 2*2*2*3. It was late.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

No worries!  I was just being a mathematical snob ;)

[LordVreeg]

[blockquote=s&m]Lunar cycles are:


Melanar Bloodmoon: 40 days


Surnest the Wanderer: 144 days


The calendar is Elven (Fehladurh) in origin (Khurorkh timekeeping was originally based on the cycles of Melanar Bloodmoon which also regulates the menstrual cycles of both '˜Orkhs and humans,) and is now in common usage by virtually all surface civilizations (If they speak Common then they're at least familiar with it.) Because of the axial tilt of the planet is less than that of Earth the temperate zones are broader than those on Earth. Given the binary suns the planet is also generally hotter.[/blockquote]

I do like this.  Celtricia is in a binary system (really binary.  2 planets, 2 suns, Celtricia has 2 moons), but I like your tying to the menstrual cycles.  It shows a lot of thought.

[Snargash Moonclaw]

While direct links to lunar gravity and menstrual "tides" have never really been proven, I think that it does have good verisimilitude. I was originally thinking of having the cycles of elves and slower breeding races - e.g. dwarves, linked to Surnest, possibly the Burrowing Peoples as a whole and then linking that of Elves to the combined lunar phases - chart both as sine waves, only ovulate when both are near full at the same time and menstruate when both are near new. I need to actually plot this and look at it tho - it would create rather long "windows" of fertility in between even longer infertile phases - there would be very distinct "generational cycles" arising from the periodic "baby booms" it would produce. Not necessarily a problem tho - just that if the pattern is distinct enough (like 4 years every 150) it's going to have a very significant impact on Fehladurh culture and society. I need to look at the combined lunar patterns any way because of tidal influences - if I treat Melanar's gravity as roughly equivalent to our moon's (Panisadore is similar in size to Earth) then when I add Surnest's influence it can cause some helaciaous tidal effects. I thought to mitigate this by having Surnest full at apogee and Melanar full at perigee, but realized lunar visibility is actually irrelevant beyond observational purposes - gravitational effects of actual apogee and perigee cause the tides regardless of associated phase. On a planet where seafaring is a significant element this kinda *has to* matter, which has me pondering designs in the back of my mind for flexible floating wharfs and piers etc. to cope with the occasional "superhigh" tides. Part of the fun for me of creating my own setting - drop in a different element and trace the ripples that would result - little things can have some big effects. . .