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From: Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: (ReacTor) Counting the Days: Five SFF Approaches to Calendars
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2025 21:45:14 -0400
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On 6/20/25 2:50 PM, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
> On 18/06/2025 21.32, Tony Nance wrote:
>> On 6/18/25 10:20 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
>>> Counting the Days: Five SFF Approaches to Calendars
>>>
>>> So many different ways of measuring history and the passage of time...
>>>
>>> https://reactormag.com/counting-the-days-five-sff-approaches-to- 
>>> calendars/
> 
> 
>> Asimov’s Foundation series used Galactic Era and Foundation Era, 
>> depending on the work. Trantor used GE. Terminus used FE. I don’t 
>> remember when GE starts. FE starts in something like 12000GE, tied to 
>> the start of the Encyclopedia Foundation.
> 
> According to stuff that I teased out of _Forward the Foundation_ some years
> back, Seldon died in 12,069 GE, which was also 1 FE. So, presumably, FE 
> started
> in 12068 GE.
> 
> Per "Beginning of War" (Chapter 16 of _Second Foundation_), GE started 
> with "the
> accession of the traditional Kambale dynasty."
> 
> This dating was being used for dates by the time of "Blind Alley"[1], 
> which is set
> in 977-978 GE. I believe that GE dating also appears in _The Stars Like 
> Dust_, but
> a quick scan of my copy doesn't reveal any examples.
> 
> Also, by the time of "Blind Alley", mm/dd has gone away; days are just 
> numbered
> 1-365 within a year. And, yes, an "Intergalactic [sic] Standard Year" is 
> always
> 365 days in length, per Chapter 16 of _Second Foundation_.
> 
> Well, mm/dd had almost gone away. Despite having said in "Beginning of 
> War" that
> the war started on day 185, the quotation from the _Encyclopedia 
> Galactica_ that
> heads "End of War" (Chapter 18 of _Second Foundation_) says that the war 
> between
> Kalgan and the Foundation ended on "9, 17, 377 FE".
> 

Nice. Thanks for tracking all that down.


> I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the Shire-reckoning yet. Those 
> crafty
> hobbits set up a calendar of twelve 30-day months. Since that didn't 
> align too
> well with the Earth's annual trip around the sun, they threw in some 
> part days
> that weren't part of any month. Five or six of them, as needed.
> 
> It's all laid out in detail in Appendix D[2] of _The Lord of the Rings_, 
> which
> also covers some other calendrical systems used by various peoples of 
> Middle
> Earth.
> 

I'd forgotten all of that. It has probably been 30+ years since I last 
read The Lord of the Rings. I should read it again some time.

Tony

> 
> [1] <https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?41602>
> [2] <https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1047472>