Calendars other than the Solar Calendar

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

The Solar Calendar is the particular situation we've been talking about here for the last week. It's one near and dear to my heart. We've been working on it hard for a long time. But it's not the only situation for Mobile Frame Zero.

Like, this guy:


I don't want that guy, with his chugging steam engine and Prussian cap to be out beside my Hi-Legs. It just doesn't make sense.

But man, I want to play an army of cavalry against him! I want to field a dirigible! I want gattling guns that go "pokpokpokpokpok!" instead of "brrrrrrt!" I want a pot-bellied, four-legged Behemoth with a howdah on its back at the head of an army of Indian revolutionaries and their clockwork infantry!

Other times, we might want everything to be taking place with jet aircraft, or maybe fields of Fremen and Sardaukar.

When we all sit down and make these details up, we're making a new calendar. We might call it the Cold War calendar year 1983, or The Padishah Emperor's Year 10191. Give it a time and a place to start, and consider everything else we've made up to be inspiration at most.

And you might want to do things that more subtly violate aesthetic principles of the Solar Calendar, too. Maybe you want 40-meter robots wielding giant hammers, or ancient ones made of robot lions. Don't feel constrained by the Solar Calendar, but don't shoehorn stuff in that doesn't fit, either. Make a new one and tell everyone about it with pictures and descriptions!

[Tetrajak]

I find this post a little confusing, although I realise it's likely a difference in general semantics. Would it be easier, and perhaps clearer, to use the word setting, or universe, rather than calendar? Having asked that, feel free to completely disregard this post.

[Ced23Ric]

Joshie uses "calendar" because of the implied contents of a calendar. We affix events and inventions, happenings and such to dates, and calendars are not just a sequence of dates, but also a way of tracking developments. As such, you can se a calendar to say in what timephase you are - and where, by noting local events in the calendar. The outcome is a timed connection of events, which then combine to a development, and thusly, represent a setting.

[CrimsonKMR]

Joshie uses "calendar" because of the implied contents of a calendar. We affix events and inventions, happenings and such to dates, and calendars are not just a sequence of dates, but also a way of tracking developments. As such, you can se a calendar to say in what timephase you are - and where, by noting local events in the calendar. The outcome is a timed connection of events, which then combine to a development, and thusly, represent a setting.

its also what people usually use when they're talking about Gundam series as well, (UC, AC, AD, FC, etc...)

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Both are right! It frees of from the limitations of continuity while giving us all its benefits.

[Tetrajak]

I suppose it had to do with a difference in word use in different countries, rather than a different intended meaning by either of us.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Well, we could call it a "timeline", but then how do you measure from a certain point?

[schoon]

Well, we could call it a "timeline", but then how do you measure from a certain point?

Apologies for the thread-o-mancy, but this very topic came up in some background fluff I'm writing, and I'm curious!

The Earth has GMT, and a bunch of variations (time zones) based upon it.

I would think that the Solar Union would have some sort of time standard referenced to (perhaps) Unification Day, that would be used for official interdstellar matters, and then local systems would have their own "year" (or orbital cycle or whatever) that would be used for everything excepting dealing with the Union.

That standard "year" would be used in history books and what not, but would be reference to the local "time zone" so locals could put it into perspective.

Perhaps the Free Colonies adopt something different as their standard, just to piss off the Unionists, and perhaps the Ijad respect any system equally, and thus have no "standard."

So, does the SU have a "standard" (AU, PU, AD, or whatever)?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

The Free Colonists aren't at the stage where they're not thinking of themselves as colonies yet.

Many revolutions have had a calendar of their own. They never catch on because they have to communicate with the whole rest of the world

So, definitely; colonies have their own calendars because farmers need to know when to plant and harvest and stuff. But since they have to communicate with other systems elsewhere in the galaxy, they all use SC, too.