<< BACK TO RS001 LOG +============================+ | ~1.64 Ms | +============================+ +---------------+ Subject: Language +---------------+ I have had time to reflect since my introduction on the QEC. I have been able to reflect more on other posts, and to train myself and my translation program to write more naturally in this galactic dialect. +-----------------------+ Subject: A Matter of Time +-----------------------+ It is difficult to truly grasp the way time dilates on a galactic scale. I'm sure the relative speed of my ship to whatever solar structure houses the QEC alone presents a divide that the human mind would find difficult to understand, let alone the effects of the QEC itself on time for each message. I know I am not alone in my confusion. Since my last correspondance, I have had time to read more of the plethora of messages stored on the QEC. Some messages seem to be sent in quick succession, while some seem to have been sent out years apart. Even if I could know that my time is perception of time is relatively consistant with an arbitrary reader, there would be no way of knowing where said observer exists, or if they would use the same standards of time. From studies of histories stored on our ship, it seems that humans have struggled to agree on a standard unit for telling time even pre-diaspora. I have thus decided that the best way to provide temporal context to my messages is to use a (hopefully) universal unit: seconds. Even if it is not used in common speech today, the concept is likely accessible in a linguistic database, or at least in a computer manual. That being said, Seconds need to measure from a specific and a shared reference time. This is harder than it may seem. Seconds from a specific Earth event would require intact records of Earth, which may not be universally available (I know that my ship contains very little verifiable information on Earth- digital data from that era is subject to degredation). Seconds based on galactic events may quickly become too large-scale to have much meaning to human life. The best solution, in the end, was to measure time from when I sent my first message on the QEC. It will have less meaning for readers when compared with their own time, but will provide more context when compared with events aboard my ship. For example, this communication was sent out ~1.64 Ms after my first communication. That is 1640000 seconds. More precision will be used if necessary, but too much precision again approaches irrelivance. For context, should your culture still use any of the old Terran metrics, an Earth day was a little under 76001 seconds (if our records of Earth are to be believed).