Haesslich
Spaceman
Antman said: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.