----- Original Message ----- From: Neil Faulkner N.Faulkner@tesco.net
Fanon sometimes refers to the "3rd Century of the 2nd Calendar", no canonical reference in any episode (but cited by Terry Nation in his
preface
to Attwood's Programme Guide).
I know, which is why I didn't give it an episode reference :). But it does seem to appear in a lot of Beeb promotional materials, so I'd be willing to make a case for its admission as extracanon but relevant.
lost lifespan. The decision wasn't ratified by the Russian Orthodox
Church,
for one, which I believe is why the October Revolution of 1917 happened in our November).
This is what I have also heard.
If so, then the inauguration of the New Calendar might not have been a
kind
of Year Zero, but merely a continuation of the old calendar with all subscribing parties brought into line.
Possible, though it does have vague echoes of decimalisation and New Pence to it, which is why I'd be inclined to view it as totally new-- para the introduction of the French New Calendar following the French Revolution. If the Federation did come to power through some sort of coup or revolt, particularly one necessitating the closure of the [older regime's] churches, it seems likely that they would try to sever as many cultural ties with the old system as possible, including changing the dating system.
with or without leap years? It's easy to see how several different
systems
might have been adopted across the galactic community, slowly drifting out of sync, hence the need for a 'new' calendar to bring them all into line.
Indeed. Some other sci-fi that I recall (notably Elizabeth Lynn's hard-sf novels) takes the convention of having two calendars in use everywhere-- a standardised galactic one and a local one. Sort of like having a universal language and a vernacular.
Three time references in the series hint at a 24 hour clock in standard
use:
in The Way Back the London's departure from Earth was advanced to 1700
Earth
time (about 5 pm, with the ship taking off in what seemed to be summer -
it
should have been broad daylight but the ship took off at night, suggesting that Earth time was based on a meridian some way away from Europe.
What's your evidence for it taking place in summer? If the story takes place in what is currently known as England <pauses, wary of cries from across the Atlantic, but hearing none, continues>, it's still pretty green in November, but pitch black by five.
Dates listed in The Way Back are given in what can be seen as a
conventional
year/month/day notation. (Renor Leesal was born on 42.1.5 and vaccinated
on
42.4.3 - he could be born on January 5th and vaccinated on April 3rd,
rather
less likely born on 1st May and *then* vaccinated on 4th March the same year.)
Just thinking... January hasn't always been the first month of the year (IIRC it was April for a long time) and so might not be the first month in the time of B7...
Other dates are obscure at best - Travis massacred civilians on Zircaster
on
date code beta 2001, and the Federation surveyed Obsidian on date code 303 ('a long time ago', according to Vila).
Which could be some sort of standardised military system?
This is probably just the scriptwriters making it up as they go along (which I'd expect of Allan Prior, not quite so forgivable for the mighty Chris Boucher) and I personally don't attach much canonical weight to either of these
references.
It could also be evidence of some long-forgotten script conference in which an attempt was made to develop a standardised ST-style dating system, which only two writers took seriously enough to adopt :)?
Besides, TWB comes first and hence takes canonical precedence.
In the case of an unresolvable contradiction, I tend to agree with you on that. Although, for the sake of argument, it could be noted that TWB is rather different from what came after, and so some bits of it could be glossed over on those grounds.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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