Extended Timeline (for Bob)

[Haesslich]

So you are saying that Confed abandoned the leap year system? Or did they just change the length of the second to coorespond to it?

I'd suggest that the leap-year system for Earth's calendars, while looking superficially like the Confederation time unit, and indeed may have been the progenitor of it, is NOT the same unit applied to the Terran Confederation as a whole. That unit is seperate - a nice, standardized unit that people from different star systems can use to coordinate their activiites, while having a 'local' calendar which takes into account things like the seasons, planetary rotations, day/night cycles, and so on. When computers are as omnipresent in Wing Commander as they seem to be (anyone remember Merlin in the WC movie?), then having different units would be a non-issue. But it would be a great help in keeping track of activities if there was a 'standard' unit available, much like there's a Confederation Standard Time in use in the WC universe, though what would be 0900 Confederation Standard Time in one place would mean 'morning' and 'middle of the night' on another planet.

And that's the point that y'all seem to be missing.

 

[Haesslich]

I agree with you, but I'm proposing that perhaps the Terran Government has used their Earth system to measure time in a consistant fashion for all of the Confederation. It wouldn't be the first time they've taken old Earth ways of doing things and applied them to the whole galactic body; ranking system, government structure, languages, etc.

It just seems a little odd to me to say they've taken leap years out of the system when there is no reason to, or evidence supporting this theory that I've seen, except for LOAF's comment about Confed's 3 digit stardate system, which I'm not exactly clear on... I always assumed that the system worked as 2669.311 = the 311th day of the year 2669 AD? I don't see why you can't differentiate February 29th for this system?

See the above post for an explanation for things which seems to fit the pattern - they DO have Confederation Standard Time units, which mean very little in comparison to local time from what we've seen, and are primarily used on ships which travel between star systems, as a means of keeping track of the 'official' time and date. Remember that the 365 day per year unit only really works out if you're talking about Earth time - otherwise, if you're on the Mars colonies, or orbiting Venus, your day/night cycles are going to be completely different, and the varying orbits make a total hash of your 365-day year system if you're trying to apply it as a local measure.

Therefore, you have two units of time - one 'standard' unit that everyone can use, no matter where they are, as a measure that's useful in coordinating activities and a second unit for local time measurements. Also, it'd be awkward to keep track of which year it was to insert a '366' into each fourth year or so, especially if that time unit was supposed to be a Confederation standard.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Okay, think about it. Each date has a known equivalent - .001 is January 1st, .032 is February 1st, etc. Under these restrictions, you can't represent February 29th - because there's no way to indicate that .060 is Feb. 29th instead of March 1st.

 

[Corsair(pilot)]

Okay, think about it. Each date has a known equivalent - .001 is January 1st, .032 is February 1st, etc. Under these restrictions, you can't represent February 29th - because there's no way to indicate that .060 is Feb. 29th instead of March 1st.

Alright, I see what you're saying now. Good point, although I'm not sure differentiating February 29th would really be a problem. It would just have to be accepted by the general public that every 4 years .060 means February 29th instead of March 1st, and during the rest of that year the numerical equivalents of the 'usual' days would just be a day earlier... which doesn't really seem that hard to me.

Remember that the 365 day per year unit only really works out if you're talking about Earth time - otherwise, if you're on the Mars colonies, or orbiting Venus, your day/night cycles are going to be completely different, and the varying orbits make a total hash of your 365-day year system if you're trying to apply it as a local measure.

I am not disputing this, in fact, it's one of my supporting arguments. Everything we have seen of wing commander time is measured in ways EXTREMELY similar to the system we use today on earth. In the Confederation, it appears the term 'day' simply represents a 24 hour period, rather than the time it takes the star to rise and set on whichever world you are on. Of course the inhabitants of a world would keep track of those things, as well as seasonal changes, but you don't necissarily need a new system of measurement to do so. Keep in mind that even here on Earth there are regions which have odd daytime/nightime periods, yet they go by the same system as the rest of the world, and I'm fairly sure it doesn't confuse them.

To say that the Confederation does not use the leap year system we use now does not make much sense without some kind of solid justification. It's like saying "a Confed kilometer is only equal to 500 meters here, because this planet is smaller than Earth." Of coarse, no one has come out and contradicted this in canon, but that's no reason to think it's true.

 

[Bandit LOAF]

Alright, I see what you're saying now. Good point, although I'm not sure differentiating February 29th would really be a problem. It would just have to be accepted by the general public that every 4 years .060 means February 29th instead of March 1st, and during the rest of that year the numerical equivalents of the 'usual' days would just be a day earlier... which doesn't really seem that hard to me.

The only issue is that, IIRC, we've seen cases where people have switched between the stardate and the normal date.

Of coarse, no one has come out and contradicted this in canon, but that's no reason to think it's true.

The 'lack of leap years' isn't a collective fan imagining - it comes from some source... I *believe* it may be Voices of War, in which there's a date-able transition from 2668 (supposed leap year) to 2669. (Though I'm actually not sure off hand if this is where it comes from, it sticks in my mind as being the most likely place...).

 

[Haesslich]

I am not disputing this, in fact, it's one of my supporting arguments. Everything we have seen of wing commander time is measured in ways EXTREMELY similar to the system we use today on earth. In the Confederation, it appears the term 'day' simply represents a 24 hour period, rather than the time it takes the star to rise and set on whichever world you are on. Of course the inhabitants of a world would keep track of those things, as well as seasonal changes, but you don't necissarily need a new system of measurement to do so. Keep in mind that even here on Earth there are regions which have odd daytime/nightime periods, yet they go by the same system as the rest of the world, and I'm fairly sure it doesn't confuse them.

To say that the Confederation does not use the leap year system we use now does not make much sense without some kind of solid justification. It's like saying "a Confed kilometer is only equal to 500 meters here, because this planet is smaller than Earth." Of coarse, no one has come out and contradicted this in canon, but that's no reason to think it's true.

Apparently, you've ignored the whole difference between 'local measuring units' and 'Confed Standard' units which I outlined in previous posts. As I stated - you can have one local unit that actually means something in terms of day/night cycles, and then you can have the Confed units which tell you when the TCS Armageddon'll be in your star system escorting that convoy you were expecting. With computers being as omnipresent as they apparently are in WC, why not have two units? It's not going to make any difference to the computer which day it is in either unit, as it can translate between both, but it'll let you keep up with the differences just fine.

The Confederation doesn't HAVE to use the leap-year system - because it doesn't matter when you're on Venus, or on Mars, or in Dakota system where the planetary orbits and rotation speeds have changed from Earth's own, and where none of them have the odd lunar tidal effects to force adjustments of their local calendars like such. If you're just using it as a 'stardate' system, to coordinate affairs through Confed, then compensating for tidal effects is unnecessary. Besides that, we've got the calendars and I believe Armada was the only one with an in-game leap year to work with.

 

[Corsair(pilot)]

No Haesslich, I haven't ignored anything you've been saying, and I've read through all of your above posts thoroughly, but you seem to be ignoring my principle argument : Where is the proof?

I find your ideas of standard time units and local time units to be pretty concievable, and in all likelyhood, how it would be handled. But that doesn't change the fact that we've never seen it in. And if we've never seen it, we can't simply assume that's how it's done. All we have ever seen of the Confederation's time measurement is the 24 hour system. Therefore that's what we know they have, and everything else is pure speculation.

The 'lack of leap years' isn't a collective fan imagining - it comes from some source... I *believe* it may be Voices of War, in which there's a date-able transition from 2668 (supposed leap year) to 2669. (Though I'm actually not sure off hand if this is where it comes from, it sticks in my mind as being the most likely place...).

Now this would be convincing evidence if somebody could get a solid reference.

Besides that, we've got the calendars and I believe Armada was the only one with an in-game leap year to work with.

Now I'm just confused... So now you're saying there are leap years in Wing Commander?

 

[Nob Akimoto]

Hmm, am I the only one who's found the population figures a tad inflated overall?

Taking a look at a military service figure.

35ish years of war, a production run of something like 80(?) carriers, a few thousand(for ease of calculation, let's round it to 5000) cruisers, twice or so as many destroyers, assuming 80% attrition on Confed's side...

We come to a figure of roughly:
80 Carriers x 5800 crew(Assumption based on modern CVN, 3000 crew, 2000 air wing personnel) = 464,000
5000 Cruisers x 1500 crew(This is way on the high side, but put it that way since some of the cruisers have largish air wings hence required support crew) = 7,500,000
10,000 Destroyers x 800 crew(again, high side) = 8,000,000

Total Combat Warship Crews: 15,964,000

Including support ships and auxillaries(which would nominally be about 4x that figure)
79,820,000

80% attrition rate for all ships:
63,856,000

That's quite literally a drop in the bucket compared to 2.1 trillion casualties. Even including the complete and total annhilation of 15 major worlds with a population in the 6-8 billion range, you still come very short from that figure...

So, where did the other 2 trillion dead come from?

 

[Dundradal]

35 years of planets being bombarded and probably almost constant civilian ship losses. Planetary and station based fighters/bombers, assault marines, other ground troops, etc...they can add up over time...also maybe even children of POWs who were born into captivity and eventual became KIA.

 

[Corsair(pilot)]

That seemes more probable. After all, a single orbital bombardment might raise the death toll quite signifigantly. Let alone things like the destruction of Kilrah, the Battle of Terra, and countless other massacres...

 

[Expendable]

Let us not forget the many billions of poor saps trapped on the outer worlds when the 'Cats took them. Then, theres Repleetah, the extremely heavy losses by front-line marines (10 percent losses are light - End Run), and transports. Don't forget the notorious habit of Kilrathi raiding, killing ships, and taking human slaves. Iceman's daughter was just one drop in a massive bucket, and the odds are that those slaves were all killed just before the end of the false truce. Massacre was the rule, not the exception, for the Kilrathi. Khorsan (Khosan?) was just one example of such.

Then, there's the non-direct deaths, for example, mining worlds without food due to the lack of transports, epidemics and such on other worlds due to a lack of medical supplies, famine and such on Terra after the anti-matter strike, people starving to death because they're a refugee on an overtaxed world that can barely feed themselves. The causes are numerous, I mean, after 30 some years of war, and a majority of the factories tooled up to produce military related objects, how many are left to produce necessary civilian goods? And, there's probably people who died after they lost their job, or were demobilized from Confed Fleet or the like, such as the bar drunkard who was a Broadsword pilot.

Personally, I think the deaths should be higher for the Confederation. But that's my two demi-credits.

 

[Dundradal]

The reason I can see the kilrathi having a higher death count is because they can be sometimes related to the russians in WW2. They used sheer numbers and firepower to try and roll over the confederation. Confed however adapted a german like tactic of actually coordinating most of their attacks (not saying the kats didn't, but honestly, Thrakhath was no Rommel or Halsey). They wasted wave after wave after wave of pilots and marines in assaults. Yes, they cared about losses, but to a lesser degree than humanity.

Also, the anti-matter strikes on Terra alone would have killed probably close to a billion people if not more, I mean they nuked most of the northern hemisphere's major cities and I'm sure by 2668 they were rather densely populated.