OK, a potential grognard hate fest awaits with this question

[hiro]

With the talk over on the beta forums of mortgages...

How many months are in an Imperial calendar?

Looking at the wiki it makes no mention of months, somewhere in the back of my head for some reason I thought there were 13 months each of 28 days or 4 weeks. This memory might have been erroneously placed by a former and very evil GM of mine.

If it's 28 days to a month shouldn't the mortgage calculations be /260?

[ShawnDriscoll]

And what are the names of the months? And what are the names of the days? I've only gone by the day number.

Imperial dates count from the year of the founding of the Third Imperium, specifying the year zero as a holiday year. Dates before that are negative, dates after that are positive, with the sign usually suppressed. Imperial dating uses a julian system for specifying days. Each day in the year is consecutively numbered beginning with 001. Thus, in the year 1105, the first day of the year is 001-1 105. Weeks of seven days and months of 28 days are used to refer to lengths of time, but rarely to establish dates.

Terran dates center on a year about midway through the period of Vilani ascendance. After that date, years ascend, and are suffixed AD; before that date, years descend, and are suffixed BC. There is no year zero. Terran years have 365 days and are considered a standard for length of year. Years are further subdivided into months and weeks, although these divisions have fallen into disuse outside the Solomani Sphere.

[hiro]

So, how many months in a year from the point of view of calculating a ship mortgage?

is it 12 or os it 13?

[ShawnDriscoll]

12.

[haveahappy]

The core rules assume that a mortgage lasts for "480 months (40 years)".

So 12 months to a year.

The Spinward Marches book details the Imperium's dating system as being a 7 day week and a 365 day year. This leaves you pretty buggered if you need to know the exact day a payment is due.

I find it slightly amusing that the Imperium still uses a dating system with it's base assumptions tied to movements of a single world relative to it's star. Numbers that don't even cleanly factor with each other, necessitating leap years to force the numbers to add up over time.

[Reynard]

Tradition never uses a metric system. The Imperium grew out of the history of the Mother World Earth. During the Rule of Man, you already had hundreds of worlds to manage each with their own times and dates. The space in between worlds (Imperial Space) has no time. Someone along the way realized they needed a standard for all worlds especially for travel between worlds. Earth was still the romantic icon of all things humanity so the people in power honored it by using time and day based on Earth. Why not? I'm sure, as we see on Earth, people have repeatedly demanded a metric time with lots of tens involved while the other side keeps winning with "If it works, don't fix it" and "But it's traditional.".

[-Daniel-]

I'm sure, as we see on Earth, people have repeatedly demanded a metric time with lots of tens involved while the other side keeps winning with "If it works, don't fix it" and "But it's traditional.".

To be honest, the base ten folks are slowly winning, but it is slow.

I thought about it and realized I do not think I have ever read an official source for the year break down. I think I always used the present modern months because it was what I knew, but I don't remember there being a fixed canon model. I could be wrong of course, but it is an interesting subject.

[wbnc]

Tradition never uses a metric system. The Imperium grew out of the history of the Mother World Earth. During the Rule of Man, you already had hundreds of worlds to manage each with their own times and dates. The space in between worlds (Imperial Space) has no time. Someone along the way realized they needed a standard for all worlds especially for travel between worlds. Earth was still the romantic icon of all things humanity so the people in power honored it by using time and day based on Earth. Why not? I'm sure, as we see on Earth, people have repeatedly demanded a metric time with lots of tens involved while the other side keeps winning with "If it works, don't fix it" and "But it's traditional.".

not too surprising to keep an old calendar..the original lunar calendar 29 days goes back thousands of years.
the 60 minute hour can be traced back to Babylonia...

I wouldn't be surprised if local governments and groups used a local calendar, as well as the imperial calendar..not officially of course...but sort of along the way people use the term fortnight...You'd get a local new year, Imperial new year, Terran New year.... celebratory days for local astronomical alignments,a nd phase, all sort fo junk tossed in with the Official year, and time periods...

[dragoner]

A lot of countries already have a 13th month, so it doesn't trip us up as much.

[hiro]

The core rules assume that a mortgage lasts for "480 months (40 years)".

So 12 months to a year.

The Spinward Marches book details the Imperium's dating system as being a 7 day week and a 365 day year. This leaves you pretty buggered if you need to know the exact day a payment is due.

I think its one of those things that's kinda been glossed over, references to months for mortgage payments without actually defining a month. Whatever it might be in the future, for gaming terms it's best to keep it in a frame of reference that players today will understand. If the standard year is 365 days it kinda makes sense to make a standard month 28 days/4 weeks. Which would upset the apple cart with those monthly payments being 1/260th. In the end it boils down to the same thing, the banks shaft you over the mortgage but it would be good to see the standard clarified. Seems like a good post for the beta test, there's a lined off paragraph on page 142 of the beta reminding us of distances, be a good addition to do the same for time.

I find it slightly amusing that the Imperium still uses a dating system with it's base assumptions tied to movements of a single world relative to it's star. Numbers that don't even cleanly factor with each other, necessitating leap years to force the numbers to add up over time.

Yeah, it's a big ol' hand wave but an interesting topic as to how it would be set up as and when we have interstellar colonies. I think it would depend on the speed of travel between systems. If you can get there in a week a la Traveller then I can see a use for the standard we've used for centuries, if the colonies are so distant in time then your frame of reference becomes local and you adopt what's there and hope your body clock can do the same.

People spending the majority of their time on starships would work to a biological norm and that starports would follow the norm to cater for travellers. Controlling the day/night cycle sounds like another reason to keep star ports at the high port location and avoid landing on the surface. This standard would be needed so you can synchronize between systems cos you know, the bank wants you to know exactly when that ship payment is due...

[Condottiere]

Month is in this sense an archaic financial period where payment or restitution is expected at the end of it. Or beginning.

Anyway, pay up. Or else.

[ShawnDriscoll]

I wouldn't be surprised if local governments and groups used a local calendar, as well as the imperial calendar..not officially of course...but sort of along the way people use the term fortnight...You'd get a local new year, Imperial new year, Terran New year.... celebratory days for local astronomical alignments,a nd phase, all sort fo junk tossed in with the Official year, and time periods...

Earth has many calendars right now. It makes sense that a game about the far future does the same for its worlds.

[Reynard]

It seems more than reasonable that every world will have calendars and probably time systems based on their planet's assets. Our hour/minute/second system is based on an Earth day and won't work smoothly with the rotations and solar orbits of other star systems either. They will have their own unique time/date systems.

The Imperium and the earlier Rule of Man would have seen this on Day One. They realized they needed one standard on ships crossing the void and, of all the possible worlds, they chose Earth. Big surprise, no? We can see this if we ever make use of planets in our own solar system yet any colonies will use Earth as a standard for interplanetary timekeeping, not a standard day based on some number other than what we have today to avoid Earth bias then broken into 10 hours, 100 minutes and 1000 seconds.

[ShawnDriscoll]

It seems more than reasonable that every world will have calendars and probably time systems based on their planet's assets. Our hour/minute/second system is based on an Earth day and won't work smoothly with the rotations and solar orbits of other star systems either. They will have their own unique time/date systems.

The Imperium and the earlier Rule of Man would have seen this on Day One. They realized they needed one standard on ships crossing the void and, of all the possible worlds, they chose Earth. Big surprise, no? We can see this if we ever make use of planets in our own solar system yet any colonies will use Earth as a standard for interplanetary timekeeping, not a standard day based on some number other than what we have today to avoid Earth bias then broken into 10 hours, 100 minutes and 1000 seconds.

Year Zero was probably spent haggling whether to keep the current calendar system or not for the Imperium. It also gave those wanting to join with the Imperium a chance to adjust their clocks. The Solomani use both numbers and months still. Even the display of the time/date varies among Solomani.

[-Daniel-]

When I ran a "Stars without Number" game I used a 10 month year with 50 days a month and 500 days a year. I also used a 20 hour clock, ten "light" and ten "dark" hours. Kept the 60 minutes per hour for some reason. Guess I was all "changed out" by the time I wrote down the hours.

I figure we could define things if we really wanted to. Or just hand wave the "Earth became the normal standard" to make it easy on the players and GMs.

[haveahappy]

It isn't some desire for a "metric" timekeeping system, it's the fact that the numbers themselves are based purely on earth-centric assumptions and the numbers don't factor properly. Our current calendar is already ancient, and includes several unusual rules to keep it accurate (leap years in years divisible by 4, except those divisible by 100, unless it's also divisible by 400, as well as uneven months and a year that does not consist of whole weeks).


You could easily say that there is a 7 day week, 28 day month, and a 336 day year. It's just as arbitrary but it's infinitely clearer and easier to calendar.

[hiro]

Yeah, I wasn't sure where all this talk of metric came from, I'm just talking about a game

[ShawnDriscoll]

It isn't some desire for a "metric" timekeeping system, it's the fact that the numbers themselves are based purely on earth-centric assumptions and the numbers don't factor properly. Our current calendar is already ancient, and includes several unusual rules to keep it accurate (leap years in years divisible by 4, except those divisible by 100, unless it's also divisible by 400, as well as uneven months and a year that does not consist of whole weeks).


You could easily say that there is a 7 day week, 28 day month, and a 336 day year. It's just as arbitrary but it's infinitely clearer and easier to calendar.

Now you're adding another level of complexity by saying there are months (365 down to 336 days now?) A "month" in the far future Imperium just means 4 weeks.

"A month has gone by."
"It will take a month."

There is no "It is now the month of..."

[hiro]

Now you're adding another level of complexity by saying there are months (365 down to 336 days now?) A "month" in the far future Imperium just means 4 weeks.

"A month has gone by."
"It will take a month."

There is no "It is now the month of..."

Not really, you're just contradicting your earlier statement.

12.

You say there are 12 months, and they're 4 weeks, 28 days each. By that calculation a year becomes 336 days.

That's why I think there should be 13 months and 260 payments on your ship mortgage.

In grognard terms (kinda) that gives you 364 days plus the infamous 1st day of the year thats a holiday for everyone.

[dragoner]

13th month is for maintenance, so no payment.