Dates and Relative Dates

[Lironah]

To avoid further confusion as far as timeline goes, I will post what we have of the calendar at the moment and some dates of historical events. Since I'm posting this a few days before the new year, I'll quote all times relative to January 1st, 2006.

The standard measure of time for Earth and all its colonies is the A.H. (After Hyperdrive) system. The A.H. year is calculated from the year Hyperdrive was first successfully tested (which was 2247 A.D.), and the months and days coincide with the A.D. calendar as well (for simplicity). The current year is 439 A.H., which on Earth is also 2686 A.D., and other colonies have their own individual calendars as well.

A colony calendar is determined by the date of founding of the colony and the annual cycle of that colony's planet, which may be longer or shorter than Earth's by a significant margin. Hope's would be nearly the same as the A.H. year, since it was the first colony founded and is a similar distance from its star, but later colonies, like Skadi or Tsevara 4, were founded later and might have dates of 200 or less.

There are thousands of smaller colonies (i.e. with populations less than 1 billion) whose dating systems have yet to reach 100, but most of them use the A.H. date simply because they have too little influence for the other colonies to keep track of their calendars. Satellite colonies of major ones tend to use that colony's dating system more often than their own.

Other dates of interest include the Nuclear Holocaust, which lasted from 2087 A.D. to 2090 A.D., the arrival of the Irrothlyr in 2165 A.D., and the completion of the active cleanup of the Earth, in 2184. We're static at 680 years behind the A.H. calendar, and the dating system we're using is day.month.year, so on New Year's 2006 it will be 1.1.-241, and the in-game date would be 1.1.439. The day after that would be 2.1.439 (not 1.2.439), then 3.1.439, etc.

Enjoy :)

[Galadare]

It is also important to note that, while A.H. is the interplanetary standard. It is mostly only used in conjunction with interplanetary operations and events. As such the dating system is most commonly used by the League and interplanetary corporations such as MaxTek and TCN.

Local governments that are affiliated with the League most commonly note both the A.H. date and the local date on official documents. While everyone else tends to use the local calendars.

[Beamer]

So how would the Skadi Military keep track of their time.

By Skadi rotation I am sure, but I would believe that they would keep track of the AH dates as well.

Thanks

[Galadare]

The Skadi military keeps track of time using the A.H. dating system. There are two reasons for this:

1) While Skadi is the leading player in the push to limit League Authority, they are still members of the IPL. As such they still donate resourses to the IPL navy. Using the standardized dating system makes things easier.

2) The Skadi government rules more than one planet, as such the Skadi government is an exception to the rule that local governments tend to use thier own system.

However, it is important to note that all important Skadi documents are cross referenced with each of its subject world's local calendars. The fact that they have local calendars is due to the expense involved with hyperspace travel and the otherwise artificial level of isolation it imposes on different worlds.