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Main => Background => Topic started by: Bonestomper on December 22, 2016, 05:14:48 AM

Title: IMPERIAL DATING
Post by: Bonestomper on December 22, 2016, 05:14:48 AM
Hey, when educated residents of the Imperium see "M41", are they conscious of the fact that that's based on Christ's birth? Or are they told it has to do with the Emperor or something?
Title: Re: IMPERIAL DATING
Post by: Wyddr on December 22, 2016, 06:35:46 AM
I'm pretty sure questions about much of anything are strongly discouraged. There's no history class in the Imperium of Man, only folklore, which is itself ancient propaganda.

I'm *betting* the folklore just says that's when the Emperor was born or when Humanity reached the stars or some such nonsense.
Title: Re: IMPERIAL DATING
Post by: Alienscar on December 22, 2016, 10:24:54 AM
Though similar in a lot of ways I thought that 40K was based in an alternative Galaxy to ours so there is no AD and BC just M00. 
Title: Re: IMPERIAL DATING
Post by: Grand Master Lomandalis on December 22, 2016, 11:53:48 AM
The way I look at it is simple:  knowledge has been lost over the millenia.

Even today, people are unaware of the reason why we are in the year 2016 (almost 17).  If an atheistic family tells their young child that the year is 2016, then all the child knows is that it is that year.  They don't know why we started counting the years from that point, or why the term BC is used for the years prior to year 1.  If no one explains it, then they will go through life under the assumption that it just is.

Say in a thousand years, the religious worship of Jesus Christ and Jehovah as deities passes into history and humanity progresses to worshiping something else as God.  If they don't make adjustments to the year format and keep using the Gregorian calendar, then it is quite possible that the years would accumulate with no one fully understanding why they are now in the year 3016.

Compound that by tens of thousands of years, and you arrive in the 31st millennium during the Great Crusade.
Title: Re: IMPERIAL DATING
Post by: Sir_Godspeed on December 23, 2016, 11:31:28 AM
Considering that we are even now seeing the spread of terms like "CE" (Common Era), it's fairly safe to assume that the Imperial dating system has no mention of Christianity in it, and is instead either tied to the Emperor or just "Human civilization" in a generic sense.
Title: Re: IMPERIAL DATING
Post by: Wyldhunt on December 24, 2016, 12:09:32 AM
I am immensely disappointed that this isn't a thread discussing romance within the grimdarkness of the 41st millenium.
Title: Re: IMPERIAL DATING
Post by: Sir_Godspeed on December 24, 2016, 06:18:54 AM
I am immensely disappointed that this isn't a thread discussing romance within the grimdarkness of the 41st millenium.

Oh, you're not alone in that.
Title: Re: IMPERIAL DATING
Post by: Aurics Pride on December 24, 2016, 08:01:22 AM
I am immensely disappointed that this isn't a thread discussing romance within the grimdarkness of the 41st millenium.

Strangely this is a subject that came up in my gaming group recently after I finished reading the Horus Heresy book "Legion". It touches on a romantic relationship between two characters which has to be possibly the first time I have seen that in a Black library book outside of the Eldar books and a brief "fling" in the very old inquisitor book.
It also mentions in the book about stories that a Grandfather would tell his grandchildren, I didn't think people lived that long when in the Imperium's service!
Title: Re: IMPERIAL DATING
Post by: Irisado on December 24, 2016, 10:39:21 AM
Anyone is welcome to start a new topic discussing dating in the romantic sense.  This topic, however, does need to return to the matter outlined in the opening post :).