The Chronicles of Local Space

Humian Calendars

The world of Humus has three calendars in common use.

Researchers’ Calendar

The oldest calendar is the Researchers’ Calendar, which is a count of days as observed from the main research base. The calendar was augmented with years once the motions of the planet were better understood. The calendar uses the arrival date of the first Dandelion Project probe as the epoch (2930 January 5 SCE or Julian Day 2791223.5) and a year length of 404⁵⁄₇ days. Dates in this calendar are expressed as year:day, eg: 331:034.

Abrahamic Calendar

The Abrahamic Calendar is a calendar designed to meet the religious needs of the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Thus, the calendar has a seven-day week that is never interrupted by epagomenal days. Although these faiths have different calendrical needs for their respective religious holidays, all agree on the need to have an uninterrupted cycle for the seven-day week.

The months are named after the Latin names for the fractions one-twelfth to eleven-twelfths, except the last month which is Latin for “last” or “final”.

The last day of Ultimus is an intercalary day that is not present every year. Intercalation is done in 87 years out of every 122, or roughly five years in every seven. The more precise intercalation of ⁸⁷⁄₁₂₂ adds one fewer day every 854 years when compared with the intercalation of ⁵⁄₇.

The Abrahamic Calendar has fourteen different permutations: a year can start on any day of the week and is either short or long.

Common Calendar

The Abrahamic Calendar is a somewhat awkward match for the motions of Humus and its moons, and the fourteen permutations make it awkward to use. A group of secular settlers, who were seeking a break with the traditions of Earth, devised the Common Calendar, also known as the Settlers’ Calendar. This calendar is a perpetual calendar that has a better match to the 5²⁄₃-day motion of Orbis. It uses a five-day week and four or five epagomenal days to create a perpetual calendar.

The five days in the week are Sunday, Moonday, Starday, Halfday, Restday. The motions of the sun, moon and stars defined the traditional time periods in many Earth-based calendars: the motion of the sun determined the length of a day, the motion of the moon determined the length of a month, and the motion of the stars determined the length of a year. Halfday is a half day of rest, with the working day ending at lunchtime, and Restday is a day of rest. This arrangement of the working week gives roughly the same amount of rest in the working week as a standard two-day weekend in a seven-day week. The weekends are shorter, but they occur more often.

Some locations lengthen the working day and make Halfday another day of rest so as to make a two-day weekend.

Intercalarius is an intercalary day that is not present every year. Intercalation is done using the same rules as the Abrahamic Calendar.

The epagomenal days are all holidays.

This document was last modified 2010-09-18 09:10:15 UTC.
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