Colonial time measurements?

Does anyone have any links to any sites that can explain how the Colonial time measurements correspond to Terran (Earth) time?

Centons, Microns, Centars, that sort of thing.

[Eric Paddon]

This is the generally accepted version of the time units, though the series took a few episodes for these things to become clear and thus there were inconsistencies.

Micron-Second
Centon-Minute
Centar-Hour
Sectan-Week
Sectar-Month
Yahren-Year

[Rowan]

Yes here is a link that spells it out for you

http://staff.bus.bton.ac.uk/fesg/bsg...surements.html


explanation on how they arived at these figures

http://staff.bus.bton.ac.uk/fesg/bsg...timenotes.html

John Larocque
http://www.kobol.com/archives/timeunit.html

Awesome!!!

You guys are the best.

[justjackrandom]

Never being happy with “almosts”, I have been unable to let this question of time lie either, and have come up with a system that seems to work fairly well on the surface, although I have not held it up to each episode as of yet. It does two things, that are different than any other Colonial time system I have seen: It does not use a 24-hour (or 25-hour) day, and it uses the Germanic influence seen in the word “yahren” to get a root meaning for the words “secton” and “sectar”. We end up with a base-10 /base-6 system, with a few oddities here and there.

Microcenton = .1 second (an important measure of distance in space..about 30KK)
Micron = 10 microcentons = 1 second
Unknown unit (macrocenton?) = 10 microns = 10 seconds
Centon = 10 unknown units = 100 microns = 1.67 minutes
Millicenton = 10 centons = 16.7 minutes
Centar = 10 millicentons = 100 centons = 2.7 hours
Cycle (megacenton?: from deleted scene from GI) = 10 centars = 27.8 hours
Secton = 6 cycles = 6.94 days = 166.7 hours
Quatron (or is it quarton?) = 4 sectons = 27.8 days
Sectar = 6 sectons = 41.67 days
Yahren = 6 sectars = 250 days (about .7 year, making the lifespan = about 137 earth years)

If the Yahren is moved to 10 sectars, you then get 416.7 days, or about 1.14 years, for an average lifespan of 228 earth years.

my 2p

[Andrew Greaves]

Actually, justjackrandom, the relative values of microns, centons, centars, and time-cycles seem to be pretty solidly established. Your suggestion that sectons, sectars, and yahren are subdivided into six subordinate units each does bear merit.

The main irritant, regarding the elegence of the system, is the fact that each time-cycle is apparently divided into 24 centars. My suggestion is that there are four centars to a quatron, and six quatrons to a time-cycle. Thus a standard work-shift lasts two quatrons. That should nicely solve the symmetry of the system.

After all, the time that the term 'quatron' is used, Adama is complaining about being cooped up in the ship for sixteen quatrons. Not the fleet. Considering how much intrafleet transit we see in the series, I certainly can't see Adama staying holed up on the Galactica for weeks or months on end.

A more interesting problem is determining exactly how Colonial time measurements compare to our own. Some quick math, combined with the fact that a yahren is shorter than a year, means that a micron is equal to or less than 0.6 seconds.

Now, considering that we're dealing with a dozen planets circling multiple stars in a single star system, it seems unlikely that the Colonial time system is based upon periods of celestial mechanics. Fortunately, the opening of each episode of the series strongly indicates that the Colonials are as human as we here on Earth, who are supposed to be the descendents on a lost thirteenth colony of Kobol.

I suggest that the Colonial time-cycle is based upon a biological human factor, specifically the human circadian rythm, which lasts roughly twenty-five hours in length.

Millenium...10 Centurons...616 years......188.5 parsecs
Centuron....100 Yahren.....61.6 years.....18.85 parsecs
Yahren......6 Sectars......225 days.......0.6 light years
Sectar......6 Sectons......37.5 days......6480 AU
Secton......6 Time-Cycles..6.25 days......1080 AU
Time-Cycle..6 Quatrons.....25 hours.......180 AU
Quatron.....4 Centars......4 h 10 min.....30 AU
Centar......100 Centons....62.5 minutes...7.5 AU
Centon......100 Microns....37.5 seconds...11.25 million km
Micron.....................0.375 seconds..112,500 km

This indicates that a Colonial has a life expectency of 123.2 years, within the estimated limit for humanity of 130 years. Which would be about 211 yahren.

The last column, incidentally, refers to the distance that light would travel in the stated period.

I hope that this works out.

[justjackrandom]

Andrew,

I love your premise, as well as the figures, and am anxious to crunch them and check them against the series for continuity. I agree that the greatest irritant is the idea of a cycle being 24 centars in length. That, however, is an assumption in the series, and not a stated fact. While spans of 24 centars are discussed, with the usage much like we would say 24 hours, it could just as easily be “48 hours”. The connection between cycle and 24 centars is never directly drawn.

There is one reservation I have about your premise, however, and that is that circadian rhythms are going to be uniform for organisms that are the evolutionary product of separate worlds. While it is possibly a coincidence that the circadian rhythms of terrestrial organisms are similar in length to the rotational period of our world, it isn’t very probable. Indeed, the circadian rhythms have been described in the scientific community as an adaptation to living on a rotating planet. I am not aware of any studies as yet to dispute that.

As all living organisms studied so far on Earth have similar rhythms, and thus it isn’t just a human trait, our current conjecture must at least provide for the possibility that scientific ideas on rhythms as adaptation apply to the colonists of the 13th tribe, leaving open the possibility that the Galactans’ rhythms are very different.

And while I love the way your figures work out so far (it certainly solves some of the issues I have hit), there is nothing in the series that even remotely suggests a 25 hour cycle, nor is there any basis in the naming conventions for a base 5 system. My concern is not just trying to find something that works, but something that works that is canonical and culturally viable.

You may still be closer than I am however. Thanks for the post.

JJR

[justjackrandom]

Andrew...initially your 6s looked like 5s to me...but as I crunched I realized I had misread, so please disregard the comments about "base 5". They make no sense in light of what I now know you actually posted.

I like this more and more... Thanks,


JJR

[Andrew Greaves]

Actually, the entire reason that I used the circadian rythm as a proverbial Rosetta Stone to link the two time systems was because of the implication in the series that both the Colonials and we here on Earth were descended from the Kobolians, and thus would've evolved the same natural circadian rythm.

The significant problem there is that the Kobollian Exodus occurred an estimated 3870 yahren prior to 'The Hand of God' and the reception of transmission of the Apollo Moon Landing. Converting to years, using my formula, places that date at 415 BC. Not counting the number of light-years the transmission travelled

Actually, even if a yahren were equal to a year, they would've still arrived no earlier than 1901 BC. Best bet is that the 13th Colony pulled a Darkover and got yanked backwards in time an indeterminate number of millenia.

[justjackrandom]

I certainly follow your reasoning, but as circadian rhythms are not limited to humans, but are part of most Earth organisms we are aware of, including plants, then I am not sure it really holds.

I am not aware of any canonical reference to when the first exodus actually occurred. Where do you get the 3870 yahren figure?

I personally like the Hancock’s Atlantis theory as a starting point for when the13th tribe made it to Earth. This would place them on Earth sometime prior to 10,500 B.C. The cataclysmic climate shift, and any other traumatic upheavals that might have occurred at that time blasted them back into a more primitive society, with only legend, myth, and a few enigmatic monuments to remind their descendents of the greatness they had once known.

And thanks for the stimulating converse BTW…

JJR

[Andrew Greaves]

You certainly have a point about the circadian rythms, however it seems to be the only feasible link we have. The fact that effectively all lifeforms have the same rythms may indicate that the 13th Colonists were forced to Kobolform Earth's biosphere in order to settle here.

After all, what with right and left-handed amino acids and all that, there's only a 25% chance that lifeforms from one planet would be able to consume and digest lifeforms from another. The Traveller RPG makes good use of that point, though don't ask me to remember any relevent links.

As for the dating question, I'm using some timelines found at http://members.cox.net/battlestar/galactica.htm for reference. The specific date for the Kobollian Exile comes from the Encyclopedia Galactica, an official, though not necessarily canonical, book published in 1979. That timeline may be found at http://members.cox.net/battlestar/galencyc.htm while the classic canonical timeline may be found at http://members.cox.net/battlestar/galtimeline.htm for comparison.

Both timelines end in the yahren 7349, with the episode 'The Hand of God', though if they do decide to include Galactica 1980 as the result of a fever dream, then we can assume that the Galactica continued to receive transmissions from Earth.

[justjackrandom]

Interesting sites. Like many things published on Galactica in the early days, however, it doesn’t seem to have been too well thought out. Even if a yahren is the same length as a terrestrial year, the suggested time spans would put the 13th Tribe on Earth much too late. Darkover it is…

As for rhythms, I agree that a viable explanation might be that the reason they chose Earth was compatibility. It certainly poses some interesting answers to Galactica questions.


JJR