Galactic Common Time

Galactic Common Time (GCT) is the standard time system in Naikari. It is based on decimal time, but with some simplifications.

Explanation

GCT time units are all based on a standard 24-hour Earth day (known as the galactic day), which is divided into 10 galactic hours, divided into 100 galactic minutes, divided into 100 galactic seconds. Officially, all time units are defined in relation to the second, which is equivalent to 0.864 SI seconds.

Longer time periods are expressed in terms of galactic years, which consist of a standard 360 galactic days.

Full GCT dates are written in the following form:

• GCT Y:DDD.T

"Y" is the year, and "DDD" is the day (always displayed as three digits). "T" is the fraction of the day, which may contain anywhere from one to five digits, typically one (denoting hours) or three (denoting minutes). So for example, the following hypothetical date indicates year 493, day 42, minute 208 (which is about 100 years prior to The Incident):

• GCT 493:042.208

The following is a chart of all time units used in Naikari along with conversions to SI (real-world standard) time.

GCT unit	Length of Time	Equal to (in SI time)
Seconds	1 galactic second	0.864 seconds
Minutes	100 galactic seconds	~1 minute and 26 seconds
Hours	100 galactic minutes	~2 hours and 24 minutes
Days	10 galactic hours	24 hours
Years	360 galactic days	360 days

Time passage

Following is a list of actions and how much time they take in Naikari.

• Flying in space: For ships with a Time Constant of 100% (that is, most small ships), time passes at a rate of 750 galactic seconds per real-world second. For ships with a higher Time Constant the passage of time is faster, and for ships with a lower Time Constant the passage of time is slower.
• Landed: Time does not pass while landed.
• Takeoff: Taking off generally takes 1 galactic day, which means that stopping to refuel during time-sensitive missions can be a bad idea.
• Jumping: Hyperspace jumps also take time, generally 1 galactic day per jump.