Years

[Blaze Strife]

Something that has been itching me for quite a while now, are the “years” of our calendar.

It has been 2237 since I’ve started playing, and I see it has been that same year for quite a while now. In that period of time, our characters have advanced several ranks, which is a feat that would require multiple years in the real life.

We can change what the number means, but we’ve already talked about things that happened X years ago, and have calculated how long ago that is. For example, our characters’ background information.

We can also fasten the rate by which we change the years, meaning we could say it’s 2238 now, or even higher, like 2240, but the problem with this is that not everyone gets the same chance to play and advance ranks. Someone that stopped playing for a real-life year could miss several years of in-game time, and wouldn’t advance a single rank.

Or do we just use Greater Suspension of Disbelief for the years?

Interesting sidenote:

Data from personal backgrounds.

Officers enrolled in the TSN Academy:

• 2224: Jemel (denied), Allard (denied)
• 2230: Allard (denied)
• 2232: Dante, Allard, Wade (I think)
• 2234: Fish, Matsiyan, Blaze
• 2235: Jemel, Mundy

Officers graduated TSN Academy:

• 2234: Allard
• 2235: Fish
• 2236: Jemel, Dante, Matsiyan
• 2237: Mundy, Blaze

[John van Leigh]

To be honest, it feels wrong to me having people join us as cadets and being full lieutenants in about a single game-year. So I just chose to ignore it and think of it as magic time or something absurd.

[Matthew Vaj]

I pretend in game years are not equivalent to Earth years. Not sure what a year is based on, in that case, but that’s how I deal with it.

[Blaze Strife]

Also, if we travel close to the speed of light or faster than it, time flows different based on our speed. So flying warp for a long time would let you live to be a 100 years old, and still look very young.

[Matthew Vaj]

Faster than the speed of light (i.e. at warp speed) would negate those effects because (in theory) it is spacetime that is moving, not the ship. And I figure any sub-light propulsion system would have a maximum velocity to prevent too much time dilation.

[Xavier]

The main reason why years advance slowly is because we are in between two specific events in the Artemis official canon (check out the game handbook for a full timeline). We kind of have to suspend belief, or we could say it works on a different cycles.

A year is very ‘Earth’ based as it is the time it takes our little planet to go round the sun. When you consider that Earth is not the only planet in the galaxy, and there are multiple USFP alien races, it could be concievable that we work on a different measure for a year.

Persoanlly, I simply suspend belief on this matter. Time and distance are both ubitsnof measure that have to be ‘abstract’ in Artemis. It is one of the reasons why I designed the stardate format as I did,to create ambiguity when it came to scales of time.

[Adele Mundy]

I used game year dates as vaguely like Earth years in my character history, just because I needed some anchor points. But I have a sense that game years are longer than Earth years (and that there is a significant hand-waving factor involved: these are not the years you’re looking for), so I tended to have life events happen at points where people would actually be a bit on the young side, if we were dealing in actual Earth years.

I’m also assuming that we have medical advances such that the human lifespan is longer than our RL one. As long as we don’t get blown up or stabbed.

And our promotions do happen faster than would be realistic, but that’s more a question of keeping the players happy, right? *looks at Xavier for confirmation*

Conclusion: Handwavium. With Unobtanium, Adamantium, Vibranium and A-Haffnium (you haven’t heard of A-Haffnium? A-Ha! The element of surprise!), it is one of the foundations of fictional universes.

[Matthew Vaj]

I’ll be sure to have Aramond scan for A-Haffnium back on the Manticore.

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