A calendar for our culture

[Spiffor]

I've just been on CFC, and someone asks us when are our holidays. It made me think we have nothing to describe a calendar here :

- no names for days
- no names for weeks (if that applies. Just imagine a system like "Monday Centauriweek September )
- no names for months
- no name of a Biblical reference or somewhat, which is the start of our calendar.

We also didn't decide how many days there are per year (since we have mathematics, the estimate we'll make now will be pretty accurate, and will last for the rest of the game), and thus ho many weeks / months.
Don't forget our planet is not earth, so we can perfectly have less or more days per year than IRL.

[Spiffor]

My suggestions :

First the math. I think we shouldn't have too many days per year.
Maybe 5 days per week, 5 weeks per month, and 14 months for a year. This means 350 days per year.

Such a suggestion would give us to name
- 5 days
- 5 weeks (if we want to)
- 14 months


I don't have all ideas for days, but I suggest days are kept basic : they revolve about fire, water, light, darkness and life, or their respective gods.

If we are to name weeks, I think we should name them after great scientific advancements by the time of Mathematics. For example the "Week of Law" or something. I think this because describing weekly patterns was a breakthrough of science when mathematics came out.

Months should be named after events of people whose very existence honor us. It could also be a way to honor people who were precious for the DemoGame (maybe we could name a month after Trip once he's away)
Our victory on the Americans would clearly deserve becoming the name of a month. How does "Victor" sound for a month ?

A concrete example could be : let's say "Pyro" is the first day of the week, "Lowal" the first week, and "Victor" the first month.
We'd call our virtual 1st day of the year "Pyro Lowal Victor" (ok, I admit Pyro 1st Victor would be easier , but hey, we're here to invent something new, don't we ?)

My suggestions sound pretty lame, even to me. I know we have people with tons of imagination here. Are you interested in elaborating new names ?

[Ninot]

I humbly suggest we use "The Simpsons" as our bible, to which we may quote if we must.

but other than The Simpsons (written by the great Apolytonian writer, Homer).. i suggest most of our little customs and holidays reflect our jungle origins.

[Spiffor]

Ah, BTW, the Biblical reference I'd suggest as the start of our calendar would be our exhodus. Remember : at the very beginning of the game, we pushed our settlers one tile east, to found Apolytonia where it currently lies.

To us, in the comfort of our modern stone houses with whith chimneys and as many bananas as we want, it seems nothing. But to them, this move was a massive undertaking the people never imagined before. They moved for 50 years in hostile forests, to found our Apolyton jewel, to find the promised land.

[/roleplaying]
Actually, this exhodus was the only event to happen 4000BC, and we need a convenient starting point for our calendar if we don't want to lose track with the years the game shows. If our starting point was 1627 BC (random number), we'd lose track extremely quickly.

So, we'd currently be 2950 AE (after exhodus)

[civman2000]

Days should be named after fruit:
Strawbday, Bluebday, Cherriday, Appleday, Peachday, Grapeday, and of course, the holy day, Bananaday.

[GodKing]

Jungle days
banana festival
Watch out for the giant mosquito day
beach party day
coconut clothing day
Trip day
Ninot day
future prez day
porn day (gotta try....)
panther ate my goat day
rainy season
dry season
new year, or death of old year
day of the dead (or walking dead)
the solstice (ie summer day, fall day... not realy good in a jungle)
how many moons do we have? we could have a lunar callender instead of a solar.
Day the big rock hit, killing all the giant lizards
Constitution day
today.

just some ideas

[Spiffor]

Maybe an idea for moons :
We could have 2 moons which revolve around the earth geostatically (I mean, a bit like artifical satellites : they seem not to move when you look at them form the Earth). Each of them would be on one pole, and could be seen only from an hemisphere or another (the nearest you are from the equator, the less you can see their glow).

I'd say the moons should have different colours, to add to the mystical aspect of their glow. Scientifically, this could mean one a volcaneous planetoid (red), and the other a rocky barren planetoid (Moon IRL).
Maybe we could add more geostatical moons, like one for Abananaba major, one for Abananaba minor, one for the other continent (if any), one for the huge ocean (if any).
They could also have yellow and purple glow if we want them to (let's just say there's a thick atmosphere there, which gives these particular colours).

I support having several moons, esp. with different colours and specific locations to spot them, as they'll create many legends.
What do you think ?

[Kramerman]

porn day (gotta try....)

Well, our origins were of skimpy clad jungle amazons being mugged by the neighboring male tribe. The resultimg mix, of course, spawned our civilization. We should remeber our skimpy clad jungle mothers, who fought so hard to protect their femininity, with a day.

Hey, if you guys want, and i would love to try my ability being an ametuer writer i am (check my below link to the current story im writing in the stories forum), I could write up a quick and creative origin of our civ. It could be funny or serious, what ever you want. If not me, I know of a bunch of capable writers in the stories forum who would enjoy a try at this. It would just be for fun.

I second Ninot's idea of the simpsons, civmans fruit idea, and all of Godkings ideas.
EDIT: and spiffors moon idea.

Kman

[Sheik]

Spiffor your moon idea is cool. This overall is a great idea.

[Ninot]

Originally posted by GodKing
Trip day
Ninot day
future prez day

lol, when are we gonna get lazy and declare the three be merged into "Presidents Day"?

[Aro]

Your Creation Myth in “The Epic Tale of Navalon” is very good. I would like to see what you could do for Apolytonia’s myths, our ancient heroes, tales, and legends. Maybe a collection of tales, you can call it "The Origin", or "From the Beginning"...
You can include many ideas, and make this funny and serious at the same time. Follow your heart!
Oh, the Spiffor's moons are remarkable!. Don't forget that!

Lot's of fun.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Maybe an idea for moons :
We could have 2 moons which revolve around the earth geostatically (I mean, a bit like artifical satellites : they seem not to move when you look at them form the Earth). Each of them would be on one pole, and could be seen only from an hemisphere or another (the nearest you are from the equator, the less you can see their glow).

If the moons revolve around the planet geostatically, they would not be on the poles, at least in this universe ; in fact, to rotate comfortably, any planet uses an axis where the poles are situated

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Spiffor
My suggestions :

Maybe 5 days per week, 5 weeks per month, and 14 months for a year. This means 320 days per year.

I would say this means rather 350 days per year !
The normal choice for the number of months could have been 10, 12, 15 or 16 (which are numbers dayly used by primitive people). Your choice for 14 proves that either we, Apolytonians, are not so primitive, or we are original, or both

[Spiffor]

I love civman's idea of weekdays named after fruit. It rocks, especially if we use jungle fruit above all. Godking's idea for holidays are also cool, but I think we don't really need a "President day" (we're a Democracy, we'd rather need a "Citizen day"
I think we could add some Monthy Python to the St Homer's bible, and some absurd prophecies of our own

(like : "In many years, a terrible war will happen between the defensers of the Banana faith, and those tainted with apple worshipping. During this war, a great hero will emerge and lead our troops to victory. He will single-handedly slain the antebanana and hundreds of his minions, but will die from his wounds. Without protection from the hero, the dark cult of the Apple will spread throughout our people. Banana trees will wither, shocked by such an insult, and it will be the doom of Apolytonia" OK, I'm not a writer, but you get the jist )


About the moon idea :
Thanks, but I'm not its author In fact, the idea comes from Skies of Arcadia, a Japanese RPG on Dreamcast (and on PS2 - GameCube in several months). If you like Japanese RPGs, this one is a must !

Oh and Davout : Where did I put my mind ? Number corrected.

[civman2000]

Kman, I think you might be a good historian for next term.

Let's say we have a moon that is actually so big it's more like a twin planet .

How about 6 days a week, 6 weeks a month, and 10 months a year? Also, once a month there is a big eclipse from the moon blocking the sun from getting any of the planet except a couple small areas.

[Kuciwalker]

To explain why DAVOUT's right:

Geostationary orbits work by having the satellite (artificial or not) orbit around the planet at the same speed as would the tip of a bar that extended the same distance away from the planet as the satellite - i.e. they stay over the same place. Now, as it is impossible to orbit around a latitude line, this has to occur at the equator.

[DAVOUT]

Duration of the week

We must think twice before reducing the week from 7 days to 6 or even 5. The primary purpose of the week is to determine that people will rest one day after 6 days of (hard) work. Any reduction of the week will result in less working days, and consequently the productivity of the civ will be reduced in due proportion. Unless the day is extended to 28 or 30 hours by a slower than Earth rotation of our planet, I would therefore not recommend any duration of less than 7 days, and I would clearly support a 8 days week.

[rendelnep]

Here is proposition for a public holiday to celebrate past victorious battles: One day a year say before the solictice or day of the dead, Everybody gatherts up in the town/city square, gathers up into two sides and attack the opposing team with either pillows or the fruit thayt corresponds the day of the week- however the holidayshouldn't occur on any days that involve hard fruits like apples or pineapples 'cause that would be dangerous and may clog whatever healthcare system with severe bruises

[badman]

do i get this right?
are we gonna make up our own calendar system, that has nothing to do with earth?
in that case i suggest we use the 10 system
10 days a week
10 weeks a month
10 month a year
well our year would have 1000 days, but that's no problem, we can make the day last 10 hours )
i think keeping it as simple as possible is the best idea

[DAVOUT]

A planet with a day of 10 hours would certainly not be very convenient for the life as we know it.
A calendar must be based on astronomical assumptions, mainly the rotation of the planet on itself and the rotation around the central star. From that, which determines the day and the year, we can derive months, weeks, hours, minutes, in a coherent system.
Are we free to imagine any kind of non coherent system ?
Yes if we intend to play a fantasy game.
No if want to play a game fun and imaginative but coherent with our knowledge of the universe.

[Spiffor]

Davout :
I think like you, we should have days which last relatively as much time as what we know (even if this is a different world, humans are playing, and a human biological schedule is approx 20-28 RL-hours long).

However, our "hours" could last a very different while than hours from the real world (roughly the equivalent of 100/150 RL-minutes, rather than 60)

But I think we shouldn't use the 10 system for everything. Ancient scientists loved to make things complicated. Some 10s would be nice for us, but too many 10s would be impossible given human nature

[UnOrthOdOx]

I'm getting a headache just reading this.

I see the temple is being put to good use, though.

[DAVOUT]

Newspapers don't bother with research, we know that.

[rendelnep]

how about this system:
we have 450 days per a year
that year is divided into 17 months (the required annoying number) This is then is divided into a month consisiting of roughly 3 weeks each week lasting 8 days. The weekend last for 3 days which is actually more than our present system.
I will continue into the finer detail but it probably wouldn't matter-
25 hour per day with each hour lasting 50 minutes eand each minut lasting 50 seconds. This ensures the the year is about the same length with earth.

[DAVOUT]

An odd number but also a prime number for the months is perfect : there will be neither quarter nor semester which means that the life of the financial analysts will be almost impossible in Apolitonia ; on top of that they will be able to write stupid or wrong commentaries only every 17 months ; imbearable for them !

But again, a three days week-end, leaving five days for the work would reduce the production by 15% (taking into account the number of minutes reduced from 60 to 50). Unless all other civs adopt our calendar (and I can't imagine the Aztecs doing so), it would jeopardize our plans to conquer the world.

[rendelnep]

not nessercarily, we could do what the french do with thier school children and half work days which would offset the difference if the weekend was infact 2.5 days. Besides the extra time might mean less stress for everybody involved and could create a relaxed yet focus work force. Besides it could mean that families have decent holiday during the weekend.
The seconds could probably be made longer to compensate for a loss of time anyway.

[Kramerman]

But again, a three days week-end, leaving five days for the work would reduce the production by 15% (taking into account the number of minutes reduced from 60 to 50). Unless all other civs adopt our calendar (and I can't imagine the Aztecs doing so), it would jeopardize our plans to conquer the world.

3 day weekends wouldn't necessarily reduce production. Bt being better rested and having penty of time for leisure activities, the workers will be happy. Happy workers, as most any managment official can tell you, are efficient workers. with 15% less time they can probably nearly finish the same amount of production, and they would ahve a better quality of life. This could spark immigration to are great nation, and a larger population means a higher potential for production....
Anyway, i like the 3 day weeend idea alot, and kinda wished we really had one IRL.

Kman

[jdjdjd]

how about monkeys/bananas....not other fruit (especially oranges, leave the oranges out of this, I mean really, oranges, why would we name a day after oranges of all things....see this Wed's Jungle Gazette for more information)

Gorilladay
Baboonday
Monkeday
Chimpanzeday
Orangutanday
GibbonDay
BananaDay, the day of rest
DaveyJonesDay (oh wait, skip this one)

Banana should be the only fruit, because its not just a fruit its a god.

Again, not oranges, such a stupid fruit to name a day after, in fact we don't even know what an orange is in Apolytonia.

[rendelnep]

jdjdjd would the holy day be in the middle of the three day weekend?