Units of time

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  • #4070
    Xavier
    Keymaster

    Opening this up for general discussion. I was writing a log entry last night and was recounting how the division had been instructed to hold position by the alien artifact we discovered. I wanted to say how long we’d been there, but stopped…. should I say we’d been there hours, days, weeks…. I was stumped.

    Currently, time is deliberately abstract. The period between each duty shift varies, from a matter of hours to up to a month in real time terms. The stardates we use are a system that allows us to keep this ambiguity (p.s. we are still in the year 2237…the year does not advance with the advance of our own year). What could the smaller denominations of time be though? We can keep years and months easily enough,but should we go with a more sci-fi term for the shorter periods of time? We needn’t specify what it equates too e.g. a unit of time is the same as an hour/minute/second.

    I thinking of those intermediate denominatoions of time primarily – days, weeks, hours. Ideas include: cycles, rotations. Any more to add? Any thoughts on this?

    • This topic was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by Xavier.
    #4072
    Leonard Hall
    Participant

    ” (p.s. we are still in the year 2237…the year does not advance with the advance of our own year).”

    So we’re pulling the Warhammer 40K excuse, alright…

    Anyway, constructive notes.

    We’ve run with days during the Cerberus Campaign ( because the siege circumstance demanded full alert) and weeks everywhere else since that fits with our weekly schedule for duty shifts.

    We can use another unit of time but it had best be relatively accurate to the time scope we actually do our OPs in.

    — LT Hall, ONI, XO Lancer

    #4075
    Xavier
    Keymaster

    Well, consider using a cycle and rotation. Several cycles could equate to a rotation. A long mission might last a few of rotations only, an average mission lasting a couple of rotations and something short being almost one rotation (i.e. several cycles).

    It could be matched to something like rotating the officers on the bridge or something – officers have to last several rotations on intense missions (hence why we all feel fatigued at the end of the long ones).

    #4077
    Xavier
    Keymaster

    As for the year, if we keep advancing it, we will end up hitting a major event in the timeline. We are in an interim period between two major timeline events at the moment. I want to keep in that period for the forseeable future.

    #4080
    Leonard Hall
    Participant

    What is that particular major event, the War of Hegemony in 2240?

    — Hall

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