Microts: Difference between revisions

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*** Or microts are used figuratively, as is done with seconds in English. When someone says "Gimme a second" he or she is not literally asking for one solitary second, but rather a moment's time.

*** In the early episodes, their usage of units varies a bit. However, by the first third or so of the first season, they're pretty firmly established. A microt is roughly a second (180 microts = 4 minutes = 240 seconds; 1.3 seconds per microt), an arn is roughly an hour, a "solar day" is roughly<ref>or not roughly, since "solar" on Earth references our star, Sol...</ref> a day, a weegen (only used once, by D'Argo) is roughly a week, and a cycle is roughly a year. A metra is on the same order of magnitude as a kilometer and a motra is on the same order of magnitude as a meter <ref>This distinction is explicitly made between Jool and Crichton in "What Was Lost (Part 2): Resurrection", when they specify that 600 motras is just over half a metra, and is a reasonable running distance</ref>. "Square dench" (square inch?) and "milon" (mile?) are also used, though rarely. See? Easy!

* The original 1979 ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' series used "microns" for seconds, "centons" for minutes (or for hours in the series pilot), "centars" for hours, "sectons" for weeks, and "yahrens" for years.

* The original 1979 ''[[Battlestar Galactica Classic|Battlestar Galactica]]'' series used "microns" for seconds, "centons" for minutes (or for hours in the series pilot), "centars" for hours, "sectons" for weeks, and "yahrens" for years.

** "Yahren" is pronounced ''exactly'' like the German ''Jahren'', the dative form of the word ''Jahre'' meaning "years". In fact, the plural of "yahren" in old BSG was "yahren". So yes, BSG did just rip off German.

** In real life, "micron" is slang for micrometre, is one-thousandth of a millimetre, but that would mean that when the Cylon raiders were "ninety microns and closing," they were 0.09 mm away. But seriously, folks, the Viper coordinator probably meant the raiders would arrive in 90 seconds on their present course and speed.

** The show hung a Lampshade on it in the episode ''Greetings From Earth'' where other human space colonists used seconds, minutes, and hours while Apollo said "Wait just a centon!" trying to figure it out.

* Re-imagined ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' averts this, except for some documents visible onscreen in Armistice Station in the Miniseries, which use original-series terminology. Spoken dialogue and other writings have "years", "minutes", etc.

* Re-imagined ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined|Battlestar Galactica]]'' averts this, except for some documents visible onscreen in Armistice Station in the Miniseries, which use original-series terminology. Spoken dialogue and other writings have "years", "minutes", etc.

* In ''[[Doctor Who]]'', Daleks use "rels" to indicate a short period of time, which varies between about one and two seconds from one episode to another.

** Time Lords in the [[Expanded Universe]] measure time in spans and microspans.

* In ''[[Babylon 5]]'', Drazi cycle not Drazi week. Cycle Drazi ''year''. It can be assumed that almost all species have their own time units, but the Babylon station runs on Earth time.

** Some early episodes referred to on-station time in terms of "cycles", but this was dropped in favor of standard Earth time units.

* Starting with ''[[Star Trek III: The Search For Spock]]'' and continuing on at least one episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', Klingon Battlecuiser crews call out the distance to their targets in "Kellecams". (Or "killicams". Or "kilicams". There doesn't seem to me much agreement on the spelling. As they're translating from Klingon, the closest would probably be something like qelI'qam.)

* Starting with ''[[Star Trek III: The Search For Spock]]'' and continuing on at least one episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', Klingon Battlecuiser crews call out the distance to their targets in "Kellecams". (Or "killicams". Or "kilicams". There doesn't seem to be much agreement on the spelling. As they're translating from Klingon, the closest would probably be something like qelI'qam.)

** Beginning with ''[[Star Trek ~~TNG~~]]'', stardates were (sort of) standardized to a year being 1,000 units long, with each unit being subdivided into 10 subunits. That would mean that 1 unit is equal to roughly 8 hours, a subunit is roughly 48 minutes, while a day is 3 units. Thus, the launch date of the ''Enterprise-D'', stardate 41153.7, correlates to February 20, 2364 at 5:36 am.

** Beginning with ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', stardates were (sort of) standardized to a year being 1,000 units long, with each unit being subdivided into 10 subunits. That would mean that 1 unit is equal to roughly 8 hours, a subunit is roughly 48 minutes, while a day is 3 units. Thus, the launch date of the ''Enterprise-D'', stardate 41153.7, correlates to February 20, 2364 at 5:36 am.

* The planet in the ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' episode “Time and Again” used rotations, intervals, and fractions. And western Arabic digits (that's 1 2 3, not eastern Arabic ١ ٢ ٣).