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Simple question.

Why the hell does the Imperium say that it's the year 40.000? Why do they still count years as we do now in M2?

I would have assumed that the Emperor would have replaced the calendar with his own before or right after the Great Crusade, especially to erase all traces of religion (since our current system is based on the Christian religion) and we know that he was actively burning down places of previous religious worship.

Is this ever tackled in-universe? Why has nobody questioned "Yeah, but 40.000 years from what?" Or has anybody questioned that?

Mostly it’s just to give us a frame of reference. It’s really one of those suspension of disbelief things.

That or the only surviving calendar from before the dark age of technology was a mid 2000’s one with motivational cat posters. It is treated as a scared relic similar to the myan calendars we found. All time is reset to the ancient cat calendar

Vintersorg wrote:
Why do they still count years as we do now in M2?

We've been in M3 for 20 years now!

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Mostly it’s just to give us a frame of reference.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's so players know that it takes place almost 40,000 years in the future.

That or the only surviving calendar from before the dark age of technology was a mid 2000’s one with motivational cat posters. It is treated as a scared relic similar to the myan calendars we found. All time is reset to the ancient cat calendar

Ha ha ha, I love this theory. I wonder what else they still have from our time.

"So we've discovered these ancient figures of soldiers and tanks... They were likely used by early third-millennium generals to plan their battles before the invention of holographic displays."

.

-Guardsman- wrote:

Vintersorg wrote:
Why do they still count years as we do now in M2?

We've been in M3 for 20 years now!

 evil_kiwi_60 wrote:
Mostly it’s just to give us a frame of reference.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's so players know that it takes place almost 40,000 years in the future.

That or the only surviving calendar from before the dark age of technology was a mid 2000’s one with motivational cat posters. It is treated as a scared relic similar to the myan calendars we found. All time is reset to the ancient cat calendar

Ha ha ha, I love this theory. I wonder what else they still have from our time.

"So we've discovered these ancient figures of soldiers and tanks... They were likely used by early third-millennium generals to plan their battles before the invention of holographic displays."

.

"sir we have discovered this codex astartes. it looks like they had a culture of psykers that foresaw all of our actions. They even assigned us numerical values of worth".
*picks up painted mini and a grey mini*
*looks at brother astartes*
"hah! you didn't even get painted".

-Guardsman- wrote:


"So we've discovered these ancient figures of soldiers and tanks... They were likely used by early third-millennium generals to plan their battles before the invention of holographic displays."

.

What's funny is that isn't even wrong.
Miniature War gaming was originally created by the Prussians back in the 18th century to teach young army officers military tactics, and the pieces were basically modified chess pieces.
Prussia's military success was suspected to have because of this by countries so they developed their own military war games, and HG Wells turned it into an actual game, writing the first miniature wargaming rulebook, Little Wars in 1913.

It might not be.

The emperor probably invented the Gregorian calendar

Because, and this was retconned a long time ago so as not to upset people, The emperor was born a long time ago and his prodigious psychic might has allowed him to live for eternity barring someone killing him.

In the story it was highlighted how he was a poor carpenters son, born 40000 years ago.

While the story may have been retconned the calendar was kept.

Cheers

Andrew

They just never stopped using it.

Lets face it stories have elements like this all the time. There's even a lot of words that we use today which get put into fantasy and sci-fi stories, but which would have no reason to exist within those stories.

Take the word "decimate". It came from the Roman concept of decimation where they'd punish legions by killing them down to 1/10th of their number (or they killed 1/10th I forget which way it went). Today we use the word to mean the same as total destruction. However in a fantasy or sci-fi setting without any Romans the word shouldn't really exist.



We use common concepts in order to construct a frame of reference and understanding within the story. Done right the reader doesn't notice it. Done badly and they do.


Another thing to consider is that every book and story you read about a fantasy setting has been translated into your language. So whilst the Imperium might use a totally different dating system, the numbers are converted into a term that we, the reader, can understand. Much like how most of the Imperium speaks Gothic, yet in the books all the text is translated into English for us.

Technically, the Imperium doesn't use our calendar.

There was an edition... 4th or 5th? It had a whole description on Imperial dating conventions. The dates include check digits to account for things the effect of distance upon time, the irregularities of the Warp and known frames of reference that link a million worlds, each with their own solar an lunar calendars, as well as variable hours of daylight and darkness.

There are no months or days in an Imperial dates; they are decimal codes for millennia plus the various check digits.

I don't have the book to hand, but maybe someone else remembers the details?

Technically we're CE (Common Era) now, not AD (year of the tyrant/lord/master).
and what formerly was BC is now BCE.

Although, given what the Imperium is, AD is wholly appropriate.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Dating_System

Except they created a new system recently, that I view as heresy and refuse to learn. I know which side I would be on in the Chronostrife conflict.

 Overread wrote:
Lets face it stories have elements like this all the time. There's even a lot of words that we use today which get put into fantasy and sci-fi stories, but which would have no reason to exist within those stories.

Take the word "decimate". It came from the Roman concept of decimation where they'd punish legions by killing them down to 1/10th of their number (or they killed 1/10th I forget which way it went). Today we use the word to mean the same as total destruction. However in a fantasy or sci-fi setting without any Romans the word shouldn't really exist.



We use common concepts in order to construct a frame of reference and understanding within the story. Done right the reader doesn't notice it. Done badly and they do.


Another thing to consider is that every book and story you read about a fantasy setting has been translated into your language. So whilst the Imperium might use a totally different dating system, the numbers are converted into a term that we, the reader, can understand. Much like how most of the Imperium speaks Gothic, yet in the books all the text is translated into English for us.

Fun fact: Decimation was 1 in 10 men beaten to death by their comrades with cludgels/clubs...(maybe stabbed.. sources vary)

In post Marius' reforms legions were codified and sorted into cohorts of 6 80 man centuries (460 men). Each century would be divided into 10 man squads known as "tent-parties"(because they shared a tent ) So if your unit run from battle /refused to follow orders it could mean you would have to beat your battle brothers to death which would have been horrible.
Its very likely you would be decimated in those 10 man squads for ease of administration. And if you think about it, those 10 men were essentially your family for 20 years of being a professional solider.... This was a very very rare punishment but must have been awful to experience.. :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AndrewC wrote:
Because, and this was retconned a long time ago so as not to upset people, The emperor was born a long time ago and his prodigious psychic might has allowed him to live for eternity barring someone killing him.

In the story it was highlighted how he was a poor carpenters son, born 40000 years ago.

While the story may have been retconned the calendar was kept.

Cheers

Andrew

You making this up ?

 Argive wrote:


You making this up ?

Nope, it was however a very long time ago when 40k was more of a satire setting rather than taking itself too seriously. We are talking 30 odd years ago in one of the early white dwarfs.

Vintersorg wrote:
Simple question.

Why the hell does the Imperium say that it's the year 40.000? Why do they still count years as we do now in M2?

I would have assumed that the Emperor would have replaced the calendar with his own before or right after the Great Crusade, especially to erase all traces of religion (since our current system is based on the Christian religion) and we know that he was actively burning down places of previous religious worship.

Is this ever tackled in-universe? Why has nobody questioned "Yeah, but 40.000 years from what?" Or has anybody questioned that?

They don't. The Imperial Calendar uses the Gregorian Calendar only as a rough basis. And then, only insofar as years and millennia are concerned. The Imperial Calendar, for example, doesn't divide up years into weeks and months, but something called "Year Ranges" and "Check Numbers", due to the vagaries of Warp travel and differences in localized time keeping systems across the galaxy.

Someone in the Imperium, for example, would not say 40,999 AD. It would be 999.M41, since very few (if anybody) would even know what the Gregorian Calendar was, much less use it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Trickstick wrote:
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Imperial_Dating_System

Except they created a new system recently, that I view as heresy and refuse to learn. I know which side I would be on in the Chronostrife conflict.

The new system is more of an addendum to the old Imperial Calendar, that is a big help in dealing with the screwed space-time situation in Realspace due to the Rift's opening. It doesn't completely invalidate the old calendar.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
The new system is more of an addendum to the old Imperial Calendar, that is a big help in dealing with the screwed space-time situation in Realspace due to the Rift's opening. It doesn't completely invalidate the old calendar.

Yes, I'm sure that in reality it is a very useful tool. However, such advancements are not very Imperial. It could be a fun hook for a campaign though. A war over a dating system seems very 40k.