Board Thread:Planning/@comment-1743498-20130926141334/@comment-5135903-20130926153141

I like the tiered timeline idea. I expect every timeline won't start at, say, the beginning of the universe (especially for civilizations), so it might be handy to have links on the main timeline saying "Such-and-such a timeline starts here". I think that could make it easier to move between the different timelines, ultimately being able to access any part of the history of Omni 01 from the main timeline page.

As a universal dating system, I have always used UTX (Universal Time matriX) in my science-fictional creations (within and outside GC); the idea being that the dating system is measured as a number of time units (of pre-determined length) from a zero-date.

For example; UTX 987 897 245 873. If you want to make a shortened date (like saying '26th of September' instead of '26th of September 2013'), you would write UTX (9) 873, indicating the number of digits you have missed out. A similar method can be used to refer to an approximate period of time (like saying 'the 21st century). For example, you might write UTX 987 8 (8). The two above examples are based on the original date I gave.

The versatility of the UTX system allows it to work well on all kinds of planets, by doing away with complications such as months and days.

I've never decided what would be used as a zero-date ('year zero'). As our astronomical observation equipment is getting more accurate, we are getting the age of the universe more accurate; the most accurate age I've seen so far is 13,720 million years. If you were thinking ambitiously, perhaps an advanced civilization might be able to determine the date to the nearest year, or even day? You could then ambitiously use the start of the universe as your zero-date.

As for the "pre-determined length" of time, I'm not sure about that, either. It would likely be something constant in nature, so that it could be easily checked anywhere in the universe. Perhaps the half-life of a certain isotope?

Anyway, due to time-dilation and such, wouldn't it be impossible to assign a single date and time ('Newtonian time') to the whole universe? Or are we still using that silly 'space and time are separate in Omni 01' thing?