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How do we refer to dates in Dual Universe?


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How are we going to refer to the dates in the game?

 

Are we just going to add 11 thousand years to the current ingame year, or are we going to refer to it as something like "PA 1 - Post Ark"?

 

This may have actually been answered in the lore, I just can't recall if that's the case.

 

I suppose I have a similar question about dates, if we're going to use the Gregorian Calendar still, or if we're going to have our own calendar in the game with new names for months. 

 

I figure most people are just going to refer to time in real world terms so it's not really an important mechanic so much as a detail. 

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OK math time. 
The cryopod was built in 2536 AD. Earth destroyed in  2538 AD.  2 years to get clear of something that is able to obliterate whole solar systems. Ouch that's cutting it a bit fine! 9,854 in cryo so the date is 12390 AD. 
In a few other SF's I've seen this kind of number recorded and 12k390 or M390 where precision is not needed. Ie above 10000 use a greek mu written M.
As for months and dates there is no data in the lore yet.

Most cases it would be moot because if you have an AI plugged into your head it can make all the the date systems you want. Months since lading, European month, Hebrew calendar, Chinese calendar. All interchangeable from each other at a voice command. With real time language translation showing up this year  then by 2536 there may be no real language barrier.  They may all be speaking different languages and not know it.  

Alain Damasio's character Sohan Decker is counting days, week month from landing. At worst that would put you 6 months out. The Gregorian and Jewish calendar already does that. Nobody cares. 12390 AD should work. 

 Alioth needs to be fleshed out a bit. How do you define north, south? Magnetic or planetary rotation? 50% chance they don't match Earth. 

How do you define longitude? What do you define as you Greenwich?  On earth it's Greenwich England or Paris France. People still argue. The SF tradition is highest point or first landing point. Both can change to become nonviable. 
Are those plants alien natives or has someone done some tricky terraforming. [i have a story planned on the lore page. ] Are they a mix of both?  

 

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The only thing that I've wondered about it time. If it will mimic real world time or shorter (maybe 6 hour for a full cycle for example)

 

If it mimics real world time then there would be a lot of people always in the dark when playing maybe as we all start from the same location? I don't know, just a thought

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The only thing that I've wondered about it time. If it will mimic real world time or shorter (maybe 6 hour for a full cycle for example)

 

If it mimics real world time then there would be a lot of people always in the dark when playing maybe as we all start from the same location? I don't know, just a thought

 

I imagine that would also depend on the size of the planet you're on, unless they all rotate at various speeds to achieve approximately the same day/night cycles (which I doubt, or rather, which I hope not). 

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Easiest way to balance both the future date and easy reference to our real tjme without too much calculation:

 

Use our real time and date; add xxx years, ideally an even number to the current year however. Example: 3017 instead 2017.

 

This could also serve as galactic standard time while you can experiment with (or apply) planetary timezones.

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How are we going to refer to the dates in the game?

 

Are we just going to add 11 thousand years to the current ingame year, or are we going to refer to it as something like "PA 1 - Post Ark"?

 

This may have actually been answered in the lore, I just can't recall if that's the case.

 

I suppose I have a similar question about dates, if we're going to use the Gregorian Calendar still, or if we're going to have our own calendar in the game with new names for months. 

 

I figure most people are just going to refer to time in real world terms so it's not really an important mechanic so much as a detail. 

 

OK math time. 

The cryopod was built in 2536 AD. Earth destroyed in  2538 AD.  2 years to get clear of something that is able to obliterate whole solar systems. Ouch that's cutting it a bit fine! 9,854 in cryo so the date is 12390 AD. 

In a few other SF's I've seen this kind of number recorded and 12k390 or M390 where precision is not needed. Ie above 10000 use a greek mu written M.

As for months and dates there is no data in the lore yet.

Most cases it would be moot because if you have an AI plugged into your head it can make all the the date systems you want. Months since lading, European month, Hebrew calendar, Chinese calendar. All interchangeable from each other at a voice command. With real time language translation showing up this year  then by 2536 there may be no real language barrier.  They may all be speaking different languages and not know it.  

 

Alain Damasio's character Sohan Decker is counting days, week month from landing. At worst that would put you 6 months out. The Gregorian and Jewish calendar already does that. Nobody cares. 12390 AD should work. 

 

 Alioth needs to be fleshed out a bit. How do you define north, south? Magnetic or planetary rotation? 50% chance they don't match Earth. 

How do you define longitude? What do you define as you Greenwich?  On earth it's Greenwich England or Paris France. People still argue. The SF tradition is highest point or first landing point. Both can change to become nonviable. 

Are those plants alien natives or has someone done some tricky terraforming. [i have a story planned on the lore page. ] Are they a mix of both?  

 

I weirdly enough made a post under my org about this very thinking - my conclusions were a little different in that Alioth must be but one of many worlds as well as virtually one of the last Arks built. (I agree with the rest pretty much maths wise :) )

 

 

"But the game is set in 10,000 years" you might say.

 
And I'd respond by pointing out that the game is set after all players have slept 10,000 years. Which means the baseline social reference frame is really circa 22nd century to 26th century Earth.
 
"Why 4 centuries. The backstory says 2537 (CE)."
 
No - the backstory says the U.N committed to the Rebirth Program in 2027. We know the Program called for thousands of ships. And that each one holds millions of people.
 
The sheer logistics and the 500 year lead time would almost necessitate an plan for an orderly and staggered migration plan - that is - Arks will launch as each one is built. It is unlikely they would be built all simultaneously - almost certainly they would be built in orbit due to the fuel required to escape the gravity well (we know they are massive enough to withstand a controlled collision and solid embedding into planetary crust - think about that a second...) if they were built planet side. So  I assume the short story talks of Arks as smaller loading/ferry ships. Aetherios' posts make a nice plausible idea there - the Arks are made up of smaller sections which could be these ferry ships.
 
So, beyond that - being conservative, let's assume it takes no more that 100 years to design and build and test the first ships, including the working (and tested!) technology for associated systems - namely, working cryogenics and fully realised AI - not some pre-canned chat bot - both of these very key (and currently non-existent) technologies are critical to Dual's backstory just to get us to the new worlds.
 
Based on that, I am working from a premise that the first ships started leaving no earlier than around say 2125.

 

So if we assumed say, starting from a medium projection baseline of a world population of 10.9 billion in 2100 (but notably and consistent with today, around 1.2 billion in the developed world with most growth happening in Africa, and assuming no breakthrough longevity tech causing trending to 0% mortality with no change to fertility/birth rates) that a staggered approach to building and launching say just 1 million people per Ark (as you don't want too many eggs in one basket since the plan is basically firing Arkship buckshot at the galaxy and hoping we hit something), at a rate of 10 per year (over 400 years), the UN conceivably saves 4 billion people, including importantly (to the ones saved) most of the population of the developed rich countries.

 

So lets further assume only a VERY generous 10% make planet fall, that's 400 seed worlds - all potentially trading with each other, with different rotation and orbital speeds.

 

So I'd suggest that DU needs local times and calendars as a game function, thus allowing emergent game play to happen if needed - one polity exerting a calendar standard on others, (Roman style!).

 

That said - a sane start for any world is Year 0/0/0 (assuming all worlds will use a "day" rotation cycle / lunar cycle / solar cycle model). The colonists can assume no one else made it, so why tie to a meaningless reference from a now long dead world. The second generation of colonists won't even have a concept of Earth, A.D or C.E, the solar/lunar/Gregorian calendar.

 

"GMT" can be easily fixed to the Ark geo-location on any world. However it raises the interesting point that any time keeping device colonists begin with (especially ship based AI's and computers) are using software written on Earth using Earth times and date systems - that could be an interesting RP hook for people - using Earth time/calendars gives you away as a space-faring ship based type or space-station dweller?

 

Additionally, what happens to human body clocks when its not a "24 hour" world (or rather, 86,400 second world)? Are we indeed stuck with "Earth time" almost physically?

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