Ansalander
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Location: Eastern Washington, USA

Weeks discovered to be “not a thing”?

Sun 19 May 2019, 04:32

How the Third Horizon reckons time, p.248:

Cycle: 1 Kuan year, 336 Kuan days

Triad: a “season”, more or less. 3/cycle. 1 extra day between each.

Segment: 1 “month” more or less. Note that Kua has no moon so there is no concept of a lunar month. 37 Kuan days. 9/cycle.
“Each segment ends with an extended rest period.” Hmmm... When, I wonder? Maybe that’s just what Third Horizon employers put on their recruiting material....

Day (Kuan): 26 hours, p.287

Watch: 6 hours (morning, day, evening and night). Wait, this doesn’t work out. There are 2 hours leftover. Perhaps a watch is 6.5 hours. Someone please ask their character and let us know.

Hour: Presumably one real life hour

Minute: See hour..

Turn: 10-20 seconds. Obviously denizens of the Third Horizon don’t know that we decide their fates using this time metric. Shhhh! Don’t tell them!

Second: See minute..

Notice something? There is no “week.” On IRL Earth, the origin of the concept of a week is tightly related to the concept of the lunar month, which doesn’t exist on Kua. No lunar months means no weeks either. Makes perfect sense.

Then the proverbial “other shoe” drops....

The word “week” appears 14 times in the core rulebook, including in actual rules (not just flavor-text). None of them explain what it is. 7 day weeks don’t work out neatly because the next largest unit of time is the 37 day long Segment, but 7 day weeks don’t work out neatly in the IRL Gregorian calendar either and we use it anyway. Let’s see... doesn’t divide evenly for Triads, hmmm. Ha! It works out for Cycles! There would be exactly 48 weeks in a Cycle.

How long is a “week” in The Third Horizon? I guess it’s 7 days.
 
Ansalander
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Posts: 18
Joined: Fri 20 Jan 2017, 07:29
Location: Eastern Washington, USA

Re: Weeks discovered to be “not a thing”?

Mon 20 May 2019, 01:02

A solution was cobbled together on The MeWe site.

Here’s how it goes (not official).

A week is 6 days.
6 weeks per segment, plus one transition day at the end of each segment. That way the so-called extended period of rest after each segment now works.

A watch is 6 hours, with one transition hour between night and morning (the rising hour) and another transition hour between day and evening (the setting hour).

Why?
They seem to have thought two things were important.
1) Transition periods, such as the holidays between each Triad.
2) The number three. There are 3 Triads and 9 (3x3) Segments. Our solution makes a week 6 days (3x2) to fit this apparent pattern. We don’t know what significance 3 had to them.

This calendar looks like this:
Segment (Six 6 day weeks)
Day of rest
Segment
Day of rest
Segment
Day of rest
Holiday, end of first triad (The 112th day)
Repeat twice more and you have a nice, neat 336 day year to match the Kuan solar year.

Each day works like this (from the Kuan equator, where most everybody lives):
The rising hour (1 hour) - begins when the the first sliver of the star Kua’s disc becomes visible.
Morning watch (6 hours)
Day watch (6 hours)
The setting hour (1 hour) - begins when the first sliver of Kua’s disc disappears below the horizon.
Evening watch (6 hours)
Night watch (6 hours)
That makes a nice, neat 26 hour Kuan day.

Nowhere have I found when a “day” begins. Surely not at midnight, that’d be dumb, right?

Note: There is some sunlight for slightly more than 13 hours. Morning twilight and evening twilight. Too complicated for me to care....
 
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Umberto Octo
Posts: 118
Joined: Wed 24 Feb 2016, 06:01

Re: Weeks discovered to be “not a thing”?

Wed 22 May 2019, 06:48

Given the flavor of the setting, each day would begin at sunset the way two Semitic religions observe time on our current dirtball.
"Se til helvete å komme dere vekk. Det er ikke en bikkje! Det er en slags TING!
Det imiterer en bikkje. Det er ikke virkelig! Kom dere vekk, IDIOTER!"
 
Ansalander
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Joined: Fri 20 Jan 2017, 07:29
Location: Eastern Washington, USA

Re: Weeks discovered to be “not a thing”?

Wed 22 May 2019, 21:45

Ah! Thank you.
 
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aramis
Posts: 668
Joined: Fri 14 Jun 2019, 20:34
Location: Oregon, USA
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Re: Weeks discovered to be “not a thing”?

Sat 29 Jun 2019, 09:46

Given the flavor of the setting, each day would begin at sunset the way two Semitic religions observe time on our current dirtball.
Not just semitic ones, either. Technically, Catholics & Orthodox retail the semitic day for liturgical purposes... so Saturday evening's serviceis actually the first sunday service. ISTR the Lutherans and Anglicans likewise,
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