Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
214,425
edits
Fantastic Measurement System: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
(quote cleanup) |
No edit summary |
||
| (19 intermediate revisions by 7 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
Instead of going with normal measurement unit names, fiction will make up their own. Expect [[Its All There in the Manual|a guide]] to have conversions between them and real units unless the entire point is to avert [[Technology Marches On]] and [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]] by simply never giving a unit comparable to real world objects in the first place.
In some cases, especially [[Science Fiction]] or [[Sufficiently Analyzed Magic]], units will have to be invented where they do not exist in normal speech. Magical energy is likely to have some unit. Particularly well developed settings may even specify what the unit is, for example, one Merlin might be defined as the magical energy required to push a specific object a specific distance.
Compare [[Hiroshima as a Unit of Measure]], where a unit is scaled to a specific object. See [[Microts]] for units relating to time.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Though it's never named, there obviously is a unit to measure one's strength in ''[[Dragon Ball]]''. In the games it's often referenced as B.P. (Battle Power). In this system, the average human would rate 2-3. By the middle of ''Dragonball Z'', the numbers we're dealing with are in the 'millions'. So yeah.
Line 13:
** Not to mention, the unit of money is called "Double Dollars", represented, of course, with "$$" (seems like just a waste of time and ink really)
* When fans ask [[One Piece|Eiichiro Oda]] things like the extent that someone who ate the [[Rubber Man|Gomu-Gomu fruit]] can stretch, Oda's response is something along the lines of "100 Gomu-Gomus" without telling us how long a Gomu-Gomu is. He does the same thing for the [[Detachment Combat|Bara-Bara fruit]] and the [[Multi-Armed and Dangerous|Hana-Hana fruit]], except the measures are in Bara-Baras and Hana-Hanas.
* In the ''[[Crest of the Stars]]'' universe, some distances are measured in daj. Other distances are measured in wesdaj, which appear to be longer than daj.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
*
* The various ''[[Transformers]]'' franchises use various [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Units_of_length units of length] and [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Units_of_time time]. While they used generic "cycles" a lot, the earliest Cybertronian units of measurement had such names as "breem," "vorn," and "orn."
== Fan Works ==
* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', the Baravadans have “longsteps”; how long these units are is never explained. Also, John's Kansael doesn't understand any Earth measurements and can't tell him how distant Ehndris is from Ta'akan; he figures out that the distance is roughly comparable to that between London and Glasgow. On the other hand, the Hunter's world uses miles.
* In the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' [[Alternate Universe Fic]] ''[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11574569/1/Dodging-Prison-and-Stealing-Witches-Revenge-is-Best-Served-Raw Dodging Prison and Stealing Witches]'' by "LeadVonE", the Wizarding world has two units of measurement for magical power: the Merlin, equal to the amount of magic that can be stored in one hundred grams of iron or about one kilogram of body mass, and the Flamel, defined as a constant flow of one Merlin per second; in a form analogous to watts and wattage, the usage is called flamelage.
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' has many. The protagonist claims that Lilliput is 5,000 ''blustrugs'' in circumference (equal to about 12 British miles, by Gulliver's estimation) while Brobdingnag's capital is three ''glonglungs'' (about fifty four English miles) long and two and a half wide.
* On ''[[Gor]]'', distances are measured in "passangs", which are 7/10ths of a mile.
* [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]' ''[[Barsoom]]'' stories. According to [[The Other Wiki]] [[wikipedia:Barsoom|article]], distance units were as follows:
Line 27 ⟶ 30:
** 1 ad = 9.75 feet
** 1 haad = .3692 miles
** 1 karad = 36.92 miles
* The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] uses the metric system - called Imperial measurements, confusingly enough - in the Republic, New Republic, and the Empire. Others may use other systems - the [[X Wing Series|Adumari]] use "keps", which are about .8 kilometers. In ''[[Outbound Flight]]'', the Chiss use "visvia", which are about 1.6 kilometers. [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Units_of_measurement There are others.]
* In ''[[Moon Over Soho]]'', Peter Grant is depressed that, despite being codified by [[Isaac Newton]]<ref>minor [[Fridge Logic]] moment there because Newton was an egotist of unparalleled proportions and would not have hesitated to invent a unit and name it after himself if it were real</ref> himself, the rules of magic have no proper unit of measurement. He decides to invent one and call it the a "yap", a "yap" being the amount of magic need to make a small dog bark.
* Similarly, the ''[[Discworld]]'' unit of magic is the ''thaum'', defined as the amount of magic needed to create a white pigeon or three standard-sized billiard balls. There is also the ''prime'', an attempt at a more rational unit created by the wizard Augustus Prime, which is defined as the amount of magic needed to move one pound of lead one foot. In a bit of a parody of how British scientists and academics act with Centigrade/Fahrenheit, it's mentioned in the ''Discworld Companion'' that any young wizard attempting to use primes will immediately face the question from his superiors "What's that in [[Old Money]]?" Perhaps because of this, thaums are nearly always cited as the unit in the books.
** ''[[
** Continuing the temperature parody theme, younger wizards use a "thaumometer" (sounds like "thermomemter") to measure the strength of a magical field, while older wizards dismiss these modern gadgets and just lick their finger and hold it up—which causes it to sprout a coloured aura which lets them judge the background magic strength.
* In ''[[Warrior Cats]]'', the most common unit of measurement is a "tail-length", which is equivalent to about a foot. "Foxlength" - about a yard - is used occasionally as well, and on very rare occasions they'll use "kittenstep" (about an inch).
* [[Dragonriders of Pern|Pern]] used "dragonlength" as a measure of, well, [[Captain Obvious|length]] and distance. The ''Dragonlover's Guide to Pern'' by Jody Lynn Nye said a length was the size of a green dragon, approximately 40 feet.
* In the ''[[Destroyermen]]'' series, the 'Cats normally measure length/distance by the "tail," which is about the same as one yard.
* [[Played for Laughs]] in the 1985 humor book ''[[Science Made Stupid]]'' by Tom Weller, in which a table in its appendix lists such units as the "arg" (the unit of work done incorrectly), the "galumph" (unit of waste motion), the "lumpen" (unit of resistance to getting out of bed in the morning), and the "melvin" (unit of temperature, "as measured from absolutely perfect to absolutely awful"). A separate table of conversions for weights and measures on the same page listed equivalencies such as "325 cubebs = 1 furbish; 6 furbishes = 1 nautical smile; 20 nautical smiles = 1 minor league; 3 minor leagues = 1 major league" and "24 carrots = 1 pickelweight; 30 pickelweights = 1 tuna; 1000 tuna = 1 short ton; 1.37 short tons = 1 tall ton".
=== [[
* "The Potrzebie System of Weights and Measurements
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Classic]]'' (1970's): according to its [[The Other Wiki]] [[wikipedia:Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)|article]], the only distance unit that wasn't an Earth name was "metron" (1 meter).▼
▲*
* In ''[[Star Trek]]'', a "kellicam" is a unit of length used by Klingons which is similar in magnitude to a kilometre.
** Bajoran units of measurement include hecapate, kellipate, kerripate, linnipate, tessijen and tessipate.
** Computer capacity is measured in "kiloquads", which are very carefully never defined to avoid looking outdated when [[Tech Marches On]].
** ''[[Star Trek]]'' has also had the forethought to come up with units for things that present-day science is physically incapable of measuring. "Cochranes" is apparently the metric unit for subspace flux (named for Zefram Cochrane, obviously). [[Unit Confusion|Except when it isn't]].
* In ''[[Red Dwarf]]'', distances are measured in "gigooks", though how far this is is never indicated.
* The Daleks of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' measure time in "rels".
** Which, when we actually hear them using it, turns out to be exactly equal to one second.
* ''[[James May's
* ''[[Farscape]]'' is an excellent example, as apparently everyone in Peacekeeper space, as well as the Uncharted Territories uses "klance" (temperature); "dench", "henta", "samat", "milon", "metron", "motra" and "zacron" (distance); "hetch" (speed); "micron", "microt", "arn", "solar day", "weeken" and "cycle" (time). The fact that everyone seems to use these, even outside Peacekeeper space, might just be due to the [[Translator Microbes]] [[Wild Mass Guessing|converting foreign measurements into units everyone can understand.]]
== [[
* [[The Trojan War|Helen]] from [[Greek
▲* "The Potrzebie System of Weights and Measurements," described in ''[[Mad]]'' #33, is largely similar to the metric system, but with different base units. The standard unit of length, the potrzebie, is defined as the thickness of ''[[Mad Magazine]]'' #26 (2.263348517438173216473 mm).
▲== [[Real Life]] ==
▲* Helen from Greek mythology is said to be the face that launched a thousand ships (to rescue her when she was kidnapped). Thus, beauty is measured in millihelens - the amount of beauty needed to launch a single ship.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Early editions of
* In ''[[Spelljammer]]'', all ships and equipment are measured in [[Recycled in Space|space tons]]. We know it's ''not'' the same as a <s>landlubber</s> "groundling" ton. Sadly, [[Unit Confusion]] in some [[sourcebook]]s raises to the level when it's not clear even whether a space ton is an unit of mass or volume.
* In ''[[Traveller]]'' the "ton" is a unit of volume, equal to the volume of 1000
* To avoid the problems of [[Technology Marches On]], ''[[Shadowrun]]'' rates the memory capacity of cyberdecks and other computing equipment in "megapulses", which are undefined in terms of real-world units.
== [[Toys]] ==
Line 78 ⟶ 74:
== [[Video Games]] ==
* The force of the final [[Quick Time Event|Climax move]] in ''[[Bayonetta]]'' is measured in "Infinitons" (most other moves are measured in "Megatons" and "Gigatons"). [[Serial Escalation]] indeed, and possible [[Fridge Brilliance]] since the idea of different values of infinity is a real concept in mathematics. Or, y'know [[Rule of Cool|it just sounds cool.]]
* ''[[Mario &
* The Source Engine uses "Hammer Units"
** Majority of [[Game Engine
* Whereas many MMOs will measure the distance of attacks (and thus, implicitly, all distances) in a unit that audiences would recognize, like meters, ''[[Final Fantasy XI]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy XIV]]'' have "ilms", "fulms", "yalms", and "malms" as their units of measure. These may be "inches", "feet", "yards", and "miles", respectively, or else just have the same relations with each other as those real measurements do (without being the actual equivalent in length).
* In ''[[Hyperdimension Neptunia]]'', you can get memory upgrades for the CPUs (a.k.a. goddesses) in your party, which are measured in [[Bilingual Bonus|megami]]bytes, natch.
* From ''[[World of Warcraft]]''; the aptly named quest "Is that a Real Measurement" requires the player to gather 20 "sloshes" of brew to build a Noodle Cart.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[The
* Grace in ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2011-02-11 measured] sadness in Seymours—using the "Jurassic Bark" episode of ''[[Futurama]]'' as a baseline.
* ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' does this sometimes, including using "kiloweiners" at at least one point to measure shame/embarrasment.
Line 90 ⟶ 88:
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* The ''[[Transformers]]'' of the eponymous metaseries have a staggering variety of not-at-all-internally-consistent Cybertronian units of [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Units_of_length length] and [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Units_of_time time].
* ''[[
** They also use the term, "nano", instead of "second". Presumably this is just short for the actual unit of a "nanosecond" but it's not explicit and short of some additional explanation would seem to conflict with the scale of time passing when the User plays a game.
** "Nanosecond" is the most likely example, given that in one episode, Enzo complains that studying could take "One whole second" in much the same way we could say "This is taking forever!"
** When Dot gets partially deleted by a magnet, Phong tells Bob that he doesn't have a lot of time to save her: "You don't have all second you know!"
* ''[[Cyberchase]]'' had "cyber" as their prefix. But it has been pointed out this isn't consistent.
* In ''[[My Little Pony:
* In an episode of ''[[The Life and Times of Juniper Lee]]'', June is brewing a potion from a recipe that calls for a "smidgen" of dustroot. Monroe claims a "smidgen" is "a bit less than a dash" and "a tad more than a pinch".
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Language Tropes]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
| |||