This was originally posted by me in the G:T section of the SJG forums this past Sunday morning...hope its okay to re-post here. Noticed some of you guys are into TRAVELLER and many of its versions....

Okay...warning this might become overly verbose and or long winded......

Back in 2004, when I started my G:T campaign I started paying attention to the weekly (daily?) posting of the TRAVELLER NEWS SERVICE items on this website. I noticed that Imperial date was usually either "today" or within 2 or 3 days of when I looked.

For example, this week the TNS entry is this :
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/Traveller/news.html

The date is stated as 190-1125. If you look at monthly planner insert calender pages that you can buy at any Office supply store or Stationary section of a "BIG" store it will show that today is Sunday, July 6th, 2008 and today's number so far in the calendar number is " 188 ".
So, we'd be 188-1125 if it matched up perfectly. (whoever is writing the TNS entries these days is posting them 2 or 3 days early)


Okay then , realizing that match-up back in 2004 , I made a Third Imperium and Solomani /Old Earth (Gregorian) Calendar matchup conversion list page or two. Then that grew to 2 or 3 pages, then 5, then 17 pages worth - all typed by hand on an old electric typewriter.

This is the main bit of 'canon' that I used to base my Solomani/Old Terra dates on:

QuoteOriginally posted as a TNS entry a few years ago : Imperial Army spokesmen dismissed today’s protests as an expected surge in mob violence. “On the Solomani calendar, today was the 7th of May,” explained Major Eneri Enleshkaadshar during a press conference. “That’s the anniversary of the final surrender of Terra during the Rim War. We see some unrest every year about this time. The Governor’s staff is confident that these malcontents will crawl back into their holes soon enough. I also guarantee that they will do more damage to fellow citizens of Fenris than they will to the Imperium.”  

Alright so I worked that out as being MAY 7, 5640 on the Solomani calendar. When SWORD WORLDS was published I was much relieved to see that the sdates in the book synched up to what I thought they would be. (IN other words, my guesses turned out to be correct)

These are the dates in the SWORD WORLDS book:

JANU 22, 1120 022-1120 May 5, 5640
Marc 12, 1120 071-1120 JUNE 23, 5640 AD
Sept 9, 1120 252-1120 December 21, 5640
Nove 25, 1120 329-1120 March 8, 5641

You'll find these dates are the 4 Sword Worlder Holidays that are noted on page 88 under the topic heading of Holidays. (at least 30 or 40 times i vaguely remembered tyhat note was in there and I looked trying to find either "Calendar" or "Gregorian Calendar". )

The Book SWORD WORLDS was written by Paul Drye, Hans Rancke-Madsen and Robert Prior and edited by Kimara Bernard. First edition and First printing was published February 2004.

Here comes my Headache: LEAP YEARS!!

Why am I going through all this detail you might wonder?

Between game session and unitentional long breaks between sessions some times my players and I one -on-one like to create more backstory for their characters. Two or three of the Maggie's crew are Solomani thnically and border on resentment/hate/disgust for the Third Imperium. They like using the old Earth /Solomani calendar better. They only use Imperium-style dates withing earshot of Imperial officials. Also, its fun to work out backwards chronologically what these player characters might have beren doing and how old they were during the Fifth Frontier war.

Oh yes, The FIFTH FRONTIER WAR - thats what lead to the mild headache. Re-discovered many of my old hardcopy issues of JTAS around here.

There is a date of 000-1108 on a TNS entry that was reprinted in the JTAS #19, page 31 (IT was the issue with "Skyport Authority" on the cover)

Now just when in the Imperium year is the date triple "000"? I assume its a way of doing that extra day every 4 years for Leap Years. My miemory is foggy on this - but was there a note in a book somewhere in either classic or GURPS:TRAVELLER that explains that?? My copy of Supplement 12: Forms and Charts has that calendar page in the back...but I didn't find an explanation of how Leap Years are fudged or explained away . Same thing when I look at page 39 of the GURPS:TRAVELLER hardback in sectiion about the Imperial Calenday and the Calendar Conversion Table.


Normally, 001 on each Imperial Calendar should matxh up with April 14th of a Solomani year. Uh-uh, Around 1107 or 1108 I got a glitch where it my charts don't have April 13th happening at the right spot - and i realized why - I'm "OFF" at least a day unless someone can tell me which Solomani years are the leap years in recent memory.

Could the old Earth year for the 'leap year' now be an odd-numbered year? Because of things like having to adjust the calender over the course of 3,630 some odd years?
Historically there was the gap in our calender in the 18th century where the church and leaders of the european agreed to skip a whole week or so in September to get the our calendar back in synch with the seasons properly. (and the solstices and easter of course). Its like 7 to 14 days the globe just agreed to SKIP over.

Thoughts?

So, which years are the "LEAP" years?

5637 A.D.

5638 A.D.?

5639 A.D.?

5640 A.D.?

just wondering....


- Ed C.

And I thought I was a Space Cadet.
Citizen Koltar report to the Tavrchedle' ( don't ask what the apostrophe is for you impertinant prole!) at once for psionic reeducation.
You should be thinking about the date in Zhodani Olympiads!

I don't think the Imperial Calendar would account for leap years at all; it's designed to provide a single dating system for an Imperium of vast numbers of different worlds, and incorporating features that stem solely to the irritating failure of Terra to orbit Sol in precisely 365 days would seem ludicrous. On the vast majority of planets in the Imperium the Imperial calendar would have nothing whatsoever to do with the local seasons, planetary orbit, whatever.