Subspace calendar

The subspace calendar is a common calendar system used by most of the known races in the Intryon universe. In particular, it is familiar to both the Valadians and the Mirali, and provides a common timekeeping method which can be used throughout the Azuria galaxy.

Introduction

Creating and using a calendar based on the time flow of a single planet is not very applicable to outer space. This posed a problem to the various species of the galaxy as they began to venture forward into the wider universe.

During the development of warp drive technology by new civilizations, they were generally quite quick to discover that the boundary between normal space and subspace resonated using a predictable pattern. This behaviour was also consistent throughout the galaxy (perhaps even the universe). Because the resonation followed a clear and consistent pattern, it became similar in function to an atomic clock, as it could reliably be used to tell the time regardless of where someone was in the galaxy. The creation of a common calendar based on this resonation was an obvious next step which helped to ease the timekeeping woes of space vessels everywhere.

How the calendar works

The length of a 'day' in the subspace calendar is the amount of time it takes the subspace boundary to go through one resonance cycle. A small change to the resonance happens every 7 cycles; this marks out a week. A larger change happens every 28 or 35 cycles; this marks out a month.

The months with 35 cycles are months 2, 5, 8 and 11; all others have 28 cycles. This very conveniently results in consistent yearly quarters, which is helpful for business planning across the galaxy.

After what is typically 364 cycles, a huge burst of energy is released, which effectively 'resets' the resonance back to its starting point. This marks the end of the year and the start of the next one.

Leap/intercalary years

In some years, the energy burst that marks the end of the year is delayed by 7 cycles, turning the last month into a 5 week month instead of a 4 week month. The years which have this delay follow a recognisable pattern and effectively function as leap years / intercalary years.

The leap year pattern repeats every 400 years, with leap years occurring every 5 or 6 years. Starting with the year 2000 the leap years would be as follows: 2000, 2006, 2011, 2017, 2023, 2028, 2034, 2039, 2045, 2051, 2056, 2062, 2067, 2073, 2079, 2084, 2090, 2095, 2102, 2107, 2113, 2119, 2124, 2130, 2135, 2141, 2147, 2152, 2158, 2163, 2169, 2175, 2180, 2186, 2191, 2197, 2203, 2209, 2215, 2220, 2226, 2231, 2237, 2243, 2248, 2254, 2259, 2265, 2271, 2276, 2282, 2287, 2293, 2299, 2305, 2311, 2316, 2322, 2327, 2333, 2339, 2344, 2350, 2355, 2361, 2367, 2372, 2378, 2383, 2389, 2395.

Example

-	Month	Meaning	Weeks	Cycles (Days)	Rough Equivalent
Quarter 1					(Spring)
A	Astrus	The month of the stars	4	28	March
B	Bellus	The month of beauty	5	35	April
C	Cantus	The month of song	4	28	May
Quarter 2					(Summer)
D	Draconus	The month of dragons	4	28	June
E	Exurus	The month of burning	5	35	July
F	Flammus	The month of flames	4	28	August
Quarter 3					(Autumn/Fall)
G	Gravitus	The month of gravity	4	28	September
H	Humitus	The month of the soil	5	35	October
I	Interitus	The month of destruction	4	28	November
Quarter 4					(Winter)
J	Jovus	The month of joy	4	28	December
K	Karus	The month of endearment	5	35	January
L	Liminus	The month of approach	4 / 5	28 / 35	February

Notable decades

• 7250s - destruction of Valadius Prime
• 8840s - roleplay
• 9270s - card game

Out-of-universe design considerations

The subspace calendar is based primarily on the Symmetry454 calendar, although the leap year rule is not the same.

Selecting a calendar system

Maintaining the same week length and approximate year length as the Gregorian calendar allows the subspace calendar to roughly shadow it, which allows for a stable mechanism of conversion for things set in the Intryon universe that need to run roughly in sync with the real world.

When selecting a base calendar system to use, choosing one which was neater than the typical Gregorian calendar was preferable. However, the 365/366 day year does not divide evenly. If using equal length months, we get 13 months of 28 days with 1 or 2 days left over; 13 months does not divide into quarters easily and the 1 or 2 remaining days have to effectively be treated as additional days of the week to maintain the week frequency, making the last week of the year 8 or 9 days long (otherwise you are starting each year on a different day). This might work well in-universe, but causes problems trying to shadow the Gregorian calendar. It was therefore deemed that Symmetry454 is a better base to build on, as it allows for weeks that align correctly with the Gregorian week.

The primary disadvantage of 454 in the real world is that the year length can vary due to leap weeks, which can be inconvenient for celebrations (such as birthdays or anniversaries) or business contract renewals/expiries which lie in the leap week. There are various ways to work around this, but the typical approach is either to treat the missing week as equal to the last week of the year (which moves the event 7 days "earlier") or to place it in the first week of the next year (which moves the event 7 days "later").

Naming the months

The names of the months were derived from Latin, and intentionally start with the first 12 letters (A through L). Written dates can then simply use the letter for the month, which avoids the confusion of date ordering (10-A-8000 and A-10-8000 are not ambiguous, whereas 10-1-8000 and 1-10-8000 are). This also lends itself well to computerized date ordering, which can be formatted as YYYY M DD for easy sorting, using the letter (since this will still sort) and remaining unambiguous. As an additional advantage, using a letter for the month avoids confusion with Gregorian dating.

Leap years and calendar conversion

The start date for the calendar is 1 Astrus 2000, which is the same date as Monday 6 March 2000. This makes 1 Karus 2000 equal to Monday 1 January 2001. The last day of the year, 28 Liminus 2000, is equivalent to Sunday 11 March 2001; the subspace year 2001 then starts on Monday 12 March 2001.

The mechanism to determine if a particular year is a leap year is basically as follows: Get the day-of-the-week of the Gregorian calendar's December 31 for both the year being checked and the year after it. If the year you want to check has a day-of-the-week that comes later than the following year's day-of-the-week, this year is a leap year.

For this mechanism, the first day of the week is deemed to be Monday.

Examples:

• 31 Dec 2023 is a Sunday (day 7). 31 Dec 2024 is a Tuesday (day 2). Sunday comes after Tuesday, therefore 2023 is a leap year.
• 31 Dec 2047 is a Tuesday (day 2). 31 Dec 2048 is a Thursday (day 4). Tuesday comes before Thursday, therefore 2047 is not a leap year.

This design is intended to make sure that December 31 will always be in week 43 of the subspace calendar (the last week of Jovus), and therefore will always occur between 22 Jovus and 28 Jovus of each year. This was done to ensure that the Christmas holiday (which will eventually have a functionally equivalent festival in the Intryon universe) is always at the same time each year (at the end of Jovus, in weeks 42 and 43).

This design also puts the added leap week at roughly the end of February in the Gregorian calendar, fairly close to February 29.

The four quarters of the year are also arranged so that they roughly represent the Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter of Earth's northern hemisphere, although the leap week rule can sometimes result in up to 2 weeks deviation from the Earth meteorological calendar.