PEEL Standardised Time System

The PEEL Standardised Time System or STS is a specially designed dating system that is now considered the official calendar of the PEEL Region.

History

It is actually based on the Solar Benjari Calendar which was used in one form or another in many of PEEL's countries. The Benjari follows the principle that the planet takes 365 days to orbit the sun, equating one year; it then splits this year into 12 months. However, many of these countries even using the Benjari Calendar did not always use the same year date - often having their own series of years based on internal events and history. The STS was a DROOP motion designed to standardise the dating of years in the region to improve communications and international cooperation and lessen confusion. After several months of consultation in the DROOP chambers, it was decided that at the next New Year, the countries that would adopt the STS would class the new year 2050 - a rounded up figure that was fairly simple, and seemed a good compromise on the different year dates being used through-out the region. For a while there were several suggestions that the entire year date should be set to nul, effectively having everyone starting a new Age at year zero. Another suggestion was to move the date to 3000, based loosely on the mythological utopian society that is described by legend to exist in the year 3000. Zedoljev and Nurdbotia, who already specified they would not be adopting the STS, requested the start date be lowered as otherwise they felt their own dates would be woefully out of step. However, these suggestions were eventually over-ruled (Zedoljev accepted 2050 as the actual compromise, despite still meaning that it would make a gap of almost exactly 20 years between the two calendars).

There was some protests from the public in various nations, however the Governments of the countries adopting STS generally succeeded in winning them over, assuring them that the cost and reorganisation required to adapt the new STS would be out-weighed by the eventual benefits. However many groups of people still refuse to recognise the STS (seeing as only the year date is changed in most cases) except on offical documents - otherwise they still live by their old systems.

By 2055 STS, the PEEL Standardised Time System had become the second most used calendar system in the world, second only to the Evanovich Calendar which is only used in a handful of countries in PEEL but used extensively outside the region, not to mention in the Farnhovan Churches. However, as far as a single calendar in use by people goes, the STS is indeed the most used, considering the Evanovich Calendar is not actually standardised and varies slightly from country or society to another.

Organisation

The STS recognises 12 months, as established by the Benjari Calendar.

When describing year dates in a historical perspective, the year dates were merely backdated. When the backdating reached zero, the dates purely went into the negative. (eg. -385) but also a system to destinguish the before and after was introduced. Before Current Era (BCE) and Current Era (CE). It was felt this was the best approach, especially considering that thus it was common to everyone, and also that very little of significance actually happened in 0 STS.

STS in relation to Real-Life

The STS and "Benjari" Calendars are purely Gregorian in structure and rely on the planet (F'rama III) to undergo the same orbit patterns and rotations that Earth goes through - this could be seen as wishful thinking considering that F'rama III is much larger than Earth, but the decision to treat it alike was made to avoid over-complication of matters. This however may be reconsidered as the community explores the science of a planet like F'rama III, looking at orbits and also lenghth of days.

Naturally, Role-playing days last much shorter than real-life days - all told, roughly two real-life month equates to one whole year in Role-playing - in PEEL at least.

See also the wiki entry on the Gregorian calendar