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Galactic Standard Calendar

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Click here for Wookieepedia's article on the Canon version of this subject.  This article covers the Legends version of this subject. 

"Born some nineteen years ago by the Galactic Standard Calendar."
―Grand Moff Birra Seah, in her report on Rebel agent Luke Skywalker[1]

The Galactic Standard Calendar or Galactic Standard Time[2] was the standard measurement of time in the galaxy. It was based on the Coruscant solar cycle.[3][4] The Coruscant solar cycle was 368 days long with a day consisting of 24 standard hours.[5] Numerous epochs were used to determine calendar eras. The most recent of these calendar eras used the Battle of Yavin as its epoch, or "year zero." BBY stands for Before the Battle of Yavin, and ABY stands for After the Battle of Yavin.[6]

Galactic Standard Time, abbreviated GST, was also a time zone in the galaxy which could be observed via a chronometer. Midday GST took place at twelve hours into a standard day, which was denoted as 12:00 GST.[7]

History[]

"It was the Historical Council of the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances that established and popularized the Battle of Yavin as the zero point to mark the beginning of our current society. Despite protests from some younger generations who maintain that subsequent battles were more significant, most educated beings agree that the Battle of Yavin was a hugely pivotal moment in galactic history."
―Tionne Solusar[8]

Over time, however, historians have used numerous galaxy-changing events as epochs to mark new calendar eras.[9]

One particularly notable epoch is the Treaty of Coruscant of 3653 BBY. The calendar eras before and after this event (referred to as "BTC" and "ATC," respectively) were popularized by the famous Jedi historian Gnost-Dural. His holographic records, which used this numbering system, contained some of the most complete records of numerous important events such as the Hundred-Year Darkness, the Great Hyperspace War, the Great Sith War, the Mandalorian Wars, the Jedi Civil War, and the Great Galactic War against the returned Sith Empire. For this reason, this method of numbering years remains important to historians.[10] Millennia later, the Ruusan Reformation of 1000 BBY substantially restructured the Galactic Republic and created a new calendar with the year 1000 BBY as its zero point.[6] Centuries later, in 36 BBY, the Republic Measures & Standards Bureau established the Great ReSynchronization calendar to rebalance the disparate dating systems used by the Galactic Republic.[9]

Finally, around 25 ABY, the New Republic Historical Council established its own dating system and chose the Battle of Yavin, instead of the Battle of Endor, calling the former the more significant galactic event. From that point on, the year in which the Battle of Yavin occurred was the epoch used for the dating system.[11] The New Republic's calendar was still in use at the time of the Sith–Imperial War.[12]

Time measurement[]

  • 60 standard minutes = 1 standard hour[4]
  • 24 standard hours = 1 standard day[4]
  • 5 standard days = 1 standard week[4]
  • 7 standard weeks = 1 standard month[4]
  • 10 standard months + 3 festival weeks + 3 holidays = 368 standard days = 1 standard year[4]

In 23 BBY, the Republic Measures & Standards Bureau debated whether to keep this calendar as one of the twenty or so official calendars of the Republic, with Keelen Ma commenting that the various researchers were getting tired of needing calendar converters on their pads.[9]

Days of the week[]

  1. Primeday[13]
  2. Centaxday[13]
  3. Taungsday[13]
  4. Zhellday[13]
  5. Benduday[13]

Some locales had other names for days of the week, including Thursday[14] and Saturday.[15]

Behind the scenes[]

BBY/ABY is sometimes known as BSW4/ASW4, which means "before/after Star Wars: Episode IV." The BSW4/ASW4 notation was used in the timeline of the second edition of A Guide to the Star Wars Universe and The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels.[16][17] The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons eschewed acronyms altogether and listed dates as YEARS, with 0 YEARS being the events depicted in Episode IV.[18] The first Essential Guide to use the BBY/ABY notation was The Essential Chronology.[11] This practice continued in The Essential Guide to Alien Species and beyond.[19]

In 2005, the keeper of the Holocron continuity database Leland Chee revealed that the 10-month calendar system that appeared early in the Expanded Universe had been dropped for further publications and replaced by a more convenient 12-month calendar.[20] The use of a 12-month/368-day calendar was later confirmed by Sue Rostoni.[21] Thus, the reference book The Essential Atlas featured years of 12 months and months of 30 or 31 days,[22] as did The New Essential Chronology.[6] However, Karen Traviss had claimed that she used the 10-month calendar when writing her Republic Commando novels[23][24]—despite the fact that, in said novels, the one-year anniversary of the First Battle of Geonosis occurs approximately twelve months after the battle.[25]

Star Wars: New Planets, New Perils! mentioned Sunday school, but gave no indication it was named for a day of the week.[26]

Appearances[]

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

  1. ↑ Star Wars (2013) 10
  2. ↑ Lords of the Expanse
  3. ↑ Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded
  5. ↑ Coruscant: Center of the Empire on Wizards.com (original site is defunct)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 The New Essential Chronology
  7. ↑ Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse
  8. ↑ Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 RM&S; Debates Calendar Reform — HoloNet News Vol. 531 #45 (original site is defunct)
  10. ↑ Timeline 1: Treaty of Coruscant on The Old Republic's official website (article) (backup link)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 The Essential Chronology
  12. ↑ The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, Vol. I ("A Timeline of Galactic Events")
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 Dining at Dex's on Hyperspace (article) (content obsolete and backup link not available)
  14. ↑ The Last of the Jedi: Master of Deception
  15. ↑ Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided
  16. ↑ A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded
  17. ↑ The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels
  18. ↑ The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons
  19. ↑ The Essential Guide to Alien Species
  20. ↑ Major Character Birth Years on Keeper of the Holocron — Leland Chee's StarWars.com Blog (original site is defunct)
  21. ↑ Don't Read This!!!!!! on Had a slight weapons malfunction. But everything's perfectly all right now — Sue Rostoni's StarWars.com Blog (original site is defunct)
  22. ↑ The Essential Atlas
  23. ↑ StarWars.com Books, Comics, & Television VIPs on the StarWars.com Message Boards (December 3, 2005) (original site is defunct)
  24. ↑ StarWars.com Books, Comics, & Television VIPs on the StarWars.com Message Boards (January 16, 2006) (original site is defunct)
  25. ↑ Karen Traviss's novel Republic Commando: Hard Contact dates the Battle of Qiilura to three months after the First Battle of Geonosis. Furthermore, the events of the main section of Republic Commando: Triple Zero, which take place nine months after the Battle of Qiilura, span twenty-eight days and begin on the day before the one-year anniversary of the First Battle of Geonosis. Therefore the one-year anniversary of the First Battle of Geonosis must have taken place twelve months after the battle.
  26. ↑ Star Wars (1977) 7
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