Year Zero: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

While seemingly as arbitrary as ''any'' hypothetical calendar is, it avoids being too specific while still setting a hard date on important things. This is useful if a writer wants to avoid accidentally invoking [[Period Piece]] baggage by using certain dates, but also an easy way to set events by the narrative rather than the implication that time is passing in a strictly consistent way. In some works Year Zero is generally the "hardest", and sometimes only, date relevant to actual characters. Most of the story takes place in the conveniently nebulous period after it. Because lying between two hard dates could be restrictive given enough time, events are reckoned as before or after Year Zero instead.

 

== Anime ==

** U.C. 0001, the first year in the original ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'''s Universal Century, is the year in which migration to space begins, and as revealed in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn]]'' (the first UC series to make reference to that year) is also tied to the actions of a young Syam Vist.

** In ''[[Gundam Seed]]'', the Year Zero appears to be a Year 1: The Cosmic Era calendar is adopted in roughly 9 CE, and is retroactively dated to begin when [[Hit So Hard the Calendar Felt It|nuclear weapons were used in Kashmir]] nearly a decade before. Three new superpowers and a number of new smaller powers also emerge from the radically changed national order. Following other Gundam timelines, the UN also announces a new Space Exploration and Colonization program. Much like other timelines, it's not mentioned when the exact date AD became CE, other than that it was sometime in the mid- or late-twenty first century.

** The After Colony calendar in ''[[Gundam Wing]]'' on the other hand, is implied begin from the launch of Skylab in the 1970s. Though it's never mentioned exactly when AC replaced AD.

* ''[[Lyrical Nanoha]]'' measures time based on the new Mid-Childa calendar, which according to the Fate's [[As You Know]] talk in episode 14 of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Striker S]]'', began during the period when physical-based weapons were banned and [[Magitek]] became the standard. This was the time when the TSAB had fully established themselves, building their main branch in Dimensional Space and their land-based HQ in Mid-Childa.

** Another Year Zero used unofficially in-story is the death of Gold Roger, twenty-four years prior, which started the "Great Pirate Era." Many characters refer to the "current era" and how it started with Roger's death. Some also remark that {{spoiler|Whitebeard}}'s death is yet another Year Zero, creating a new era.

 

** The Star Wars BBY/ABY (Before/After Battle of Yavin) calendar differs from most real-life examples in that 1 BBY and 1 ABY are the same year. The transition between BBY and ABY happens at the exact moment that the Death Star was destroyed.

* In ''[[2012]]'', after [[The End of the World as We Know It]], the remains of mankind restart the calendar.

 

 

* The [http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Timeline_(RDM) Battlestar Wiki Timeline] measures time from the Cylon holocaust depicted in the ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' miniseries. The in-universe calendar is only referred to once, in the season 3 episode "Hero", where readable text in a printed copy of Adama's dossier indicates that the 'present day' of that episode is the Colonial year 21356, {{spoiler|somewhere around the year 148000 B.C.}}

* The current year is never mentioned in any season of ''[[24]]'', but the amount of time between days (16 months between Day 1 and 2, three years between Day 2 and 3, etc) is always established and can be used to determine how many years it has been since Day 1. In addition, fans have used various clues to formulate the following timeline:

** Day 2: A Saturday in September 2005

** Day 3: September 2008

* In the early days of ''[[Harry Potter]]'', fans had to measure time from Harry's first year at Hogwarts. Thankfully for timeline-makers, ''[[Chamber of Secrets]]'' [[Fandom Nod|threw in a line]] (specifically, Nick's Deathday date) that placed the first book in the 1991-92 school year. ''Deathly Hallows'' established the same time frame through the dates on James and Lily Potter's graves. Frustratingly, this means that Dudley was able to destroy a "Playstation" [[Did Not Do the Research|roughly a year before one could actually be bought]], but that's a throwaway remark and has no bearing on the adaptations.

** The movies throw their own wrench into the timeline by destroying the [[wikipedia:Millennium Bridge chr(28)Londonchr(29)|Millennium Bridge]] in 1996.

* Though there were always some details here and there that showed in what year the [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories were set, there was always the question on how old was Holmes. Whether he was in his 20's, 30's or 40's during Study In Scarlet (his first appeareance). It wasn't until His Last Bow (which was supposed to be the [[Grand Finale]]) that he decided to give Holmes an age of 60 during 1914, meaning that he was born in 1854 and was 27 years old during Study in Scarlet (set in 1881)

* J.R.R. Tolkien's timeline in both ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' was meticulously kept. Frequent dates were given on the in-universe calendar (in the case of The Lord of the Rings both in Shire Reckoning and the larger calendar of Middle-Earth). Additionally, each culture kept time based on their own internal reckoning, with years based on significant events: The Hobbits followed Shire Reckoning, with Year Zero on the founding of the Shire, while Gondor and Rohan had their own calendars as well. Middle-earth on the whole broke timekeeping down into different Ages whose first year was decided by specific events. Tolkien paid so much attention to his calendar system that he even rewrote the ''entire chapter'' of Faramir and Frodo overlooking the waterfall at Henneth Annûn because he realized that the phases of the moon he used didn't match his previously established timeline!

* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', Year Zero in the Seven Kingdoms is dated from the crowning of King Aegon I the Conqueror, founder of the Targaryen dynasty. The main series starts 298 years later.

* At the end of ''[[Anathem]]'', the main character notes that the current day is "Day Zero, Year Zero". Given that {{spoiler|their discovery of, and contact with, other universes has changed society a lot}}, this is to be expected.

* Also from David Weber is ''[[Safehold]]''. As far as Safeholdians know, Year Zero is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]], the day of Creation itself. Though following the Archangel Shan-wei's rebellion, a new calendar was established using the end of that war as the Year Zero.

 

 

== Real Life ==

** A literal example of this trope comes from Cambodia, where the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot declared 1975, the year that that Khmer Rouge insurgents were able to seize control of the Cambodian state, to be Year Zero of a new calendar.

* This was averted by the Anno Domini dating system used throughout the world. There is no year zero, and it is one of the calendar's base assumptions. Things that happened before the birth of Christ (the starting point of the calendar) are calculated in negative years Before Christ, counting down not to Year Zero, but AD 1: that is, there is a direct skip from 1 BC straight to AD 1! (Due to errors in calculations, the actual AD 1 may lie anywhere from 6 BC to AD 6).