CUSP Session 6: Time and Distance

Good morning.

Let’s talk about the real world for a moment.

Right now, we have a lot of different measurements for Time and Distance.  From my research the Second is considered the standard unit of time upon which all other units of time are built.  For distance, well, it depends on who you ask.  Most of the globe uses the Metric system where the Meter is considered the standard unit of distance.  These work fine for our experiences here on Earth.  For a long time though, I’ve felt that once we get out into space, I mean really get out there and start colonizing other star systems, we’re going to need to come up with something better.

Seconds, for example, are based on the old Babylonian divisions of time based on the movements of the moon and sun.  Typically, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but those values are really strongly tied to the unique conditions of our home planet, and once we land on any other orb, they will quickly become cumbersome.  Conversion alone from Earth time to Mars time for example will cause the common folk a huge headache.

That’s not even mentioning our measures for distance.  Once we start looking at things in space we use stuff like Light Years, or the really complicated Parsec.  A lot of math goes into figuring out how many Light Years are between two stars, and even more heavy math is used to determine the distance of a single Parsec.  As far as I understand it that is, I’ll admit I don’t fully grasp all the math involved.  Again though, these values are so abstract or specialized in nature that they become impossible to use on a day-to-day basis for common practical purposes.  What’s more, all those distance values are linked to our previously mentioned time values.  A Light Year is initially based on the length of the Earth Year.  That’s not so useful once Earth isn’t the only ground we walk on.

So, for the purposes of this Science Fiction setting, I’ve decided to develop a new standard of measurement for Time and by extension stellar Distances.  It was originally meant to be an attempt at Metric Time, but the units of measure grew too big too quickly when multiplying by 1000.  Instead, I chose to multiply by 10.  Also, rather than use the Second as the standard unit of time, I chose to use the Hour.  I know, right now the Hour is technically based on the Standard Second, but that doesn’t get in the way of it being a good middle ground between the old time scale and my new one.

Now let’s discuss things from in setting for a bit.

At one point the ruling Super-Corps recognized that the way we measure time on Earth is too cumbersome for an interstellar civilization.  Trying to measure time on other planets using Earthly Days and Years would be confusing and would pose unnecessary difficulties in conversion.

So, corporate mathematicians proposed several possible alternatives in order to have a standard for time measurement which could be applied relatively comfortably to any settlement on any planet or space station.  It had to be something that would be easy for the entire population to switch to from the current standards of Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, and Years.  It also had to be uniform enough to be applicable to all locations across all of settled human space.

Many of the proposed time systems were rejected for being too complicated and difficult to implement.  Most of the more acceptable suggested time systems employed some variation on a Metric theme but there was a great deal of debate over which unit should be the baseline for a metric expression of time.

Eventually, one idea proved to be the best balance between adaptability and ease of adoption, and it was implemented by all five Super-Corps as the standard of time measurement throughout all of human space.  This time system became known as Galactic Time.

They chose to keep one of the existing Earth time units as the base metric time unit.  This made it much easier for the population to transition into the new Galactic Time system.  This base unit is the Hour.  This choice was controversial as the previous SI standard unit was the Second which had been precisely defined* and was used to express all other time units. The definition for the standard second was extended by multiplying its value by 3,600 to form a precise definition of the new standard hour.

* (Currently the SI Standard Second is defined as the unperturbed ground-state hyperfine transition frequency of the caesium 133 atom at 9,192,631,770 hertz.  I’ll be honest, that definition is so dependent on specialized jargon that I really don’t understand what it’s saying.  I made an assumption that the standard hour could be defined using similar methods.  I have no idea if this is a reasonable assumption for defining the standard hour.  Most likely the big brains in physics, atomic chemistry, and math would choose a different methodology for precisely defining the standard hour, but I don’t understand those fine complexities enough to accurately portray it.  The current proper definition of the Second can be found here if you would like to learn more.)

Once the hour was decided upon as the standard unit of measure, all other values for measuring time were quickly determined.  Using a system similar to the metric system each additional time unit was calculated by dividing or multiplying the standard hour by a factor of 10.  Because it was preferable to use finer time units than the standard Metric Prefixes would allow each time unit was given a standard name and standard abbreviation for common use.

The resulting list of time units is represented in the following chart.

Galactic Time Unit	Abbreviation	Baseline	Earth Time Conversion
Tick	tk	0.001 hours	Exactly 3.6 seconds
Pass	ps	0.01 hours	Exactly 36 seconds
Moment	mt	0.1 hours	Exactly 6 Minutes
Hour	hr	1 hour	Exactly 60 Minutes
Shift	st	10 hours	Exactly 10 Hours
Span	sn	100 hours	Roughly 4.2 Days
Term	tm	1,000 hours	Roughly 42 Days
Venture	ve	10,000 hours	Roughly 1.1 Years
Tour	tr	100,000 hours	Roughly 11.4 Years
Contract	ct	1,000,000 hours	Roughly 114 Years

Part of the reason for using the Hour as the base time unit was that one of the resulting time units, the Venture, worked out to be relatively close to the standard Earth year.  This further assisted in the ability for the new Galactic Time system to be accepted by the populace as very little conversion was needed to express Earth time using Galactic Time units.

Earth Time Unit	Galactic Time Conversion
1 Second	Roughly 0.3 Ticks
1 Minute	Roughly 1.7 Passes
1 Hour	Exactly 1 Hour
1 Day	Roughly 2.4 Shifts
1 Week	Roughly 1.7 Spans
1 Year	Roughly 8.8 Terms

A necessary side effect of the redefining of time was a change to humanity’s ability to measure distances in space.  Previously the Light Second and Light Year were used to measure the distances between planets and stars.  Now those distances are measured in Light Ticks and Light Ventures.

The Light Venture is roughly 10.8 trillion kilometers, while the previously used Light Year was roughly 9.5 trillion kilometers.

The Light Tick is roughly 1.08 million kilometers, while the previously used Light Second was roughly 300 thousand kilometers.

Similarly, the speed of sound is now expressed as approximately 1.2 kilometers per tick, rather than 0.34 kilometers per second.

There was a transition period which was much more difficult than anticipated where many individuals struggled with the new methods of measuring time.  After roughly 80 years however, every human had grown accustomed to Galactic Time.  It has been in active use ever since.

With these new definitions of time and distance human society was able to clearly express the cycles of every planet and star system they colonized using the same measures.  It also allowed for distances between colony stars to be standardized so that all ships knew clearly where they’re going and how long it would take to get there.  This affected other measurements strongly, such as necessary cargo capacity on ships for fuel, water, oxygen, and sustenance. Cargo spaces are now regulated to contain amounts that match the travel distances between the colonized star systems.  Anything less would be disastrous.

Sol Year	Heading	Event
50 BCR	Politics	The Olympian Summit is held in Athens at which Super-Corp Executives gather to discuss humanity’s future. Many joint initiatives are publicly proposed which are intended to support the common good of all humanity. The true details of the summit and many Super-Corp joint initiatives are kept secret.
46 BCR	Space	The first joint initiative to be implemented is the launching of the world’s most advanced space telescope. This telescope is dubbed Oracle and is used to catalogue exo-planets around nearby star-systems. Oracle searches the closest stars for evidence of enough Fuel, Water, and Mineral resources. Should Oracle find any suitable candidates the Super-Corps plan to fund a multi-year mission to scout the system.