*Not sure if this should go here or in general creative* One thing I had to start thinking about before writing was how the passage of time is measured on Cybertron. I still use terms like "a few days ago," or "give me a minute," but that's hardly alien is it? A race of machines should have more... round numbers than 365 or 24. So I started looking into units of time from other shows (especially the IDW comics and the Animated universe, where such things had the most utility). This is the system I use in Earthfall and Law of the Jungle. The units are based partially on Earth Equivalencies so that there would be at least some common ground. The smaller ones, that I don't use nearly enough. 1 Click ≈ 5 Earth Seconds 12 Clicks = 1 Cycle ≈ 1 Earth Minute 12 Cycles = 1 Megacycle 5 Megacycles ≈ 1 Earth Hour 12 Megacycles = 1 Planetary Shift (Shift for Short) ≈ 2.4 Earth Hours The larger, more important ones. 12 Shifts or 144 Megacycles = 1 Solar Cycle (Cybertronian Day) ≈ 28.8 Earth Hours 10 Shifts or 120 Megacycles ≈ 1 Earth Day 100 Solar Cycles = 1 Astro Cycle (the closest thing to a Cybertronian Month, usually referred to just as "cycles.") 3 Astro Cycles or 300 Solar Cycles = 1 Stellar Cycle (Cybertronian Year) 2 Shifts or 24 Megacycles = 1 Lunar Cycle (the time it takes one of Cybertron's moons to rise and set in the nighttime sky) Nighttime on Cybertron lasts 3.6 Lunar Cycles. Cybertronian History is divided into Epochs, so that once a new one is declared the calendar resets. The first year of a new Epoch therefore almost always has a shorter "fourth cycle" to balance things out. Like many aspects of the old Cybertronian government, the process is terribly convoluted. Cybertronian Dates are arranged YY.M.DDD. The day the Ark crashed on Earth in Earthfall; DD+190.02.070, was the seventieth day of the 2nd Astro Cycle of the 190th Year of the Epoch of the Great War. It would be known colloquially as "2nd Cycle 90." The current Epoch takes precedence in the date, unless referring to past dates. I hadn't made up too many of the Epochs before writing this, so let's use this as an example. The day before Nova Prime claimed the Matrix (beginning the Grand Novan Epoch) would be considered GN-0.00.001, but in the Epoch of Quintesson Independence or any Epoch after the Grand Novan Epoch it would be considered QI+150.03.002.
Hi, I'm interested in the calendar system used in IDW comics. According to TFWiKi (Transformer - Transformers Wiki): (I've checked several UK annuals with nothing found.) and from James Roberts (I can't open this page): Thus I don't understand your explanation of the calendar format: See my post here for further info as in Lost Light #2. Thank you.
i wanted to post something similar to this before because i'd been thinking of what Boulder said in Rescuebots: "allspark day happens once every 7 cycles".. then i started researching the equivalent Cybertronian time measurements to Earth's & found them on sources like Transformers wiki, and by Googling. i'm not too familiar with IDW or Animated, but, referring again to Boulder's comment, a cycle probably is a longer measure of time, probably 1 year = 1 cycle. But then, there's a comment made by Arcee in Transformers Prime saying she was going to soak in an oil bath for an entire solar cycle when they return to Cybertron.. so solar cycle could = 1 day? but like i said, i'm not too familiar with Cybertronian measurements among various iterations. Arcee taking an oil bath during Cybertron's Golden Age, Pre-Civil War
Maybe a cycle is a year or two, and so Arcee's still in that oilbath, which is why she hasn't been seen in RID.
Wow, I've never had anyone respond to one of these! Animated was particularly reliant on the "cycle" in any unit of time, with the fairly obvious day and year as Solar and Stellar Cycles, and the more general use "give me a cycle" which could mean seconds or minutes. I imagine that in the vernacular context determines what unit they're referring to; in the way we might say "hold on a sec" but not actually mean the unit "1 second."
