Mike Basinger asks...
TA::>How does time and calendars works in Traveller: The New Era. Is it a
::>basic 24 hours a day clock and a 365 days a year calendar? Are years
::>divided into 12 equal parts, etc...? Or does the system use things
::>like Stardates (ala Star Trek)?
The Imperial calendar was based on a fixed 365 day year, each day
being 24 hours. Days were numbered 001-365, with no other
official designations. However, due to the length of time that a
jump takes, widespread but informal usage of a "week" of seven
days was common. Normal notation is daynumber-year (for example,
123-1201).
The Solomani Confederation used Terra's old Gregorian calendar,
and has done so for roughly the past 4,000 years. This calendar
is based on the cycle of Terra around Sol, and the day is based
on the rotational period of Terra, almost exactly one standard
day of 24 standard hours (there is speculation that this is in
fact the origin of the Imperial calendar designation. However,
the current Imperial calendar is also a very close match for
the day and year of Capital). The year is divided into twelve
approximately equal periods called "months" (with the number of
days varying from 28 to 31 according to no discernible formula),
and extra (intercalary) days are inserted approximately every
four years according to a fairly complex formula. Normal
notation is name-of-month daynumber-in-month, year (for example,
July 4, 5776).
The Vilani calendar is based on the Vilani year of 500
32-standard-hour days. Each day consists of a "dran", or
daylight period, and a "dir", or night period, each of 16 hours.
Each dran and dir is numbered separately, yielding a total of
1,000 distinct numbered entities over the course of the Vilani
year. Normal notation is year.dran-or-dir-number (for example,
7453.293)
Zhodani and Aslan also have their own calendars. If you're
interested, let me know, and I'll dig out that info and post it
to the List.
*Credit where due department: Most of this information has been
cribbed from GDW's own work, and also work by DGP. The
presentation here is totally my own, however.
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Jeff Zeitlin [email removed]
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~ QMPro 1.51 ~ Don't worry: The answer's at the back of the book.