History Main / StandardTimeUnits

* When one of the characters in ''Literature/HyperionCantos'' novels ends up travelling to [[spoiler: Earth, which was not destroyed but moved]], he expresses surprise that the day exactly corresponds to a 'standard' day in the [=WorldWeb=], before realising that the standard time measurements actually come from Old Earth.

* In Vernor Vinge's novel ''Litreature/ADeepnessInTheSky'', the major space-faring civilization measures time only in seconds and units derivable from them via metric prefixes (so kiloseconds, megaseconds, etc.)

* In Vernor Vinge's novel ''A Deepness in the Sky'', the major space-faring civilization measures time only in seconds and units derivable from them via metric prefixes (so kiloseconds, megaseconds, etc.)

-->--"Search By The Foundation", ''{{Literature/Foundation}}''

-->--"Literature/SearchByTheFoundation", ''{{Literature/Foundation}}''

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* The second is now defined based on atomic clocks, so that it doesn't change when tectonic activity alters the day length on Earth. It also means you don't have to be watching the Earth to measure a second [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE!]]

** {{Justified|Trope}} in that it still represents the amount of time it takes for the sun to make one circuit in the sky, even if it doesn't set. And, you know, the sleep cycles of the people there.

** In ''Literature/Diaspora'', the characters pin their clock time to real time by the 'tau', a subjective measure of time that depends on the power of the hardware they're running on and the relativistic effects of galactic travel. "Rushing," where the character runs their clock incredibly slowly to wait for the Universe to do interesting things in a short space of perceived time, is often used to make the cosmology useful to the plot.

* Averted and played straight at the same time in ''Manga/{{ARIA}}''. Aqua (Mars) has its own calendar to represent that it has a different amount of days per year than Earth, but the series does use both that calendar and the standard Gregorian calendar.

* Dan Simmons' ''Literature/HyperionCantos'' novels.
** Which is both better and worse than most examples. Travel is usually instantaneous so people sometimes go from noon to midnight with a footstep but it's pretty clear that everything everyone knows about anything comes from the World Web, which is standardized.
** When one of the characters ends up travelling to [[spoiler: Earth, which was not destroyed but moved, he expresses surprise that the day exactly corresponds to a 'standard' day in the [=WorldWeb=], before realising that the standard time measurements actually come from Old Earth]]
* Vernor Vinge's novel ''A Deepness in the Sky'' consciously averts this trope: The major space-faring civilization measures time only in seconds and units derivable from them via metric prefixes (so kiloseconds, megaseconds, etc.). On the other hand, it eventually becomes clear that their computers all count time starting from the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time Unix epoch]].
** Though they themselves have forgotten the fact, and falsely believe that their clocks start from the time of the first Moon landing. (It's close enough for government work, anyway; the Unix epoch is coincidentally the first Gregorian new year after the moon landing.)

** Easily resolved [[AllThereInTheManual by combining sourcebooks with math]]. In this setting the drow were banished underground only 10,000 years ago, and drow live for several hundred years. They could have been seeing normal days and nights as few as twenty generations ago.

* When Nameless Technician in ''Literature/NuklearAge'' points out that the alien spaceship spotted was exactly one mile in diameter, Dr. Genius disbelievingly points out what a coincidence that would have to be. Of course, there is a [[CallBack good reason]].
* Utterly and completely averted in many Creator/GregEgan novels, which are frequently told from the point of view of conscious AI entities running on weird and whacky computational frameworks. (The weirdnessess are often plot points, and the changing ratio of perceived time versus objective time as the framework changes are also plot points.) There is at least one book (Diaspora?) where you have all that going on AND relativity in the mix. "Rushing," where the character runs their clock incredibly slowly to wait for the Universe to do interesting things in a short space of perceived time, is often used to make the cosmology useful to the plot.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Space 1889}}'' Mostly averted. Martians use their own time units, but since the Martian day is 24 hours and 40 minutes conversion is not really necessary. Martian year is close slightly less two earth years making conversion easy.

** An interesting variation is seen in one of the Literature/CiaphasCain books, with a planet that doesn't rotate on its axis. The inhabitants adopt a planetwide system of sleep and work periods that allow them to be effective at the same time.

* The drow of Menzoberranzen in the R.A. Salvatore ForgottenRealms novels still use hours, days, and years based on the sun for some reason, even going so far as to enchant a giant stone pillar to serve as an infrared sun surrogate. They don't have any contact with surface-going nations or any reason it would be necessary to synchronize with them.

** Though they themselves have forgotten the fact, and falsely believe that their clocks start from the time of the first Moon landing. (It's close enough for government work, anway; the Unix epoch is coincidentally the first Gregorian new year after the moon landing.)

* The Ekumen of Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin's novels has a nominal standard year for recordkeeping, but due to the difficulty of interstellar travel most worlds use [[AlternativeCalendar idiosyncratic calendars]] based on the local year.

* ''OrionsArm'' uses fairly hard science and thus has to accept the problem posed by relativity. As a result no one has any idea what year it is by our calendar (except GAIA) and every planet has not just different length days and years but experiences time at a different rate.

* Dan Simmons' ''Hyperion'' novels.

* The Imperium of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' uses Earth years in a continuation of the Gregorian calendar, with the year nominally divided into 1,000 parts for record-keeping purposes. They do use a unique notation, though. Instead of "38,420 AD" they would write "420 M39," meaning 420th year, 39th millennium.

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* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's later ''{{Foundation}}'' novels, this is used as a plot point to deduce the identity of Earth, the forgotten homeworld. The standard year and day correspond to no day or year cycle on any known world, but just might correspond to the original.

* The Ekumen of UrsulaKLeGuin's novels has a nominal standard year for recordkeeping, but due to the difficulty of interstellar travel most worlds use [[AlternativeCalendar idiosyncratic calendars]] based on the local year.

* This is a plot point in the StarWarsExpandedUniverse novel ''[[Literature/XWingSeries The Krytos Trap]]'' where Corran Horn notes that he's either on a planet so backwater that all local clocks are set to GST, regardless of local time, or... [[spoiler:he's actually been on Coruscant the whole duration of his imprisonment]].

** Though they themselves have forgotten the fact, and falsely believe that their clocks start from the time of the first Moon landing.
*** The Unix epoch just so happens to be the first new year after the moon landings. So if you wanted to introduce a calendar using the moon landings as its reference event, but with the same new-year's day as the Gregorian calendar, you might well end up just subtracting 1970 from the Gregorian year, and have the calendar's epoch be the same as the Unix epoch. If you then went over to a seconds-only count because of interstellar colonization, that second-count would be identical to Unix time (with the possible exception of the handling of leap-seconds).

* This is a plot point in the StarWarsExpandedUniverse novel ''[[XWingSeries The Krytos Trap]]'' where Corran Horn notes that he's either on a planet so backwater that all local clocks are set to GST, regardless of local time, or... [[spoiler:he's actually been on Coruscant the whole duration of his imprisonment]].

* When Nameless Technician in ''NuklearAge'' points out that the alien spaceship spotted was exactly one mile in diameter, Dr. Genius disbelievingly points out what a coincidence that would have to be. Of course, there is a [[CallBack good reason]].

* The 2000s ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Battlestar Galactica]]'' uses standard Earth units and 24-hour military time without explanation. The series takes place [[spoiler:in the Neanderthal era, in a society that has no knowledge of the planet Earth]], so the best possible explanation is that "standard Colonial time" just happens to exactly resemble Earth chronological conventions.

* In ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'', it becomes clear that the GM has ''not'' set up a standard calendar for the universe when everyone's debating whether Jim can use his Fate Manipulation ability again to avoid his character's death. This despite the Republic in ''StarWars'' having using a standard calendar (based on the calendar of its central planet, Coruscant); of course, Jim's character [[DoomedByCanon did have to die in that scene]].

* ''VoidDogs'' is set in deep space, so the issue of different planets having different day lengths hasn't been addressed. It's been hinted that the standard is actually a ''28'' hour day.

** An interesting variation is seen in one of the CiaphasCain books, with a planet that doesn't rotate on its axis. The inhabitants adopt a planetwide system of sleep and work periods that allow them to be effective at the same time.

* In the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' series, there are two time standards: The standard time we're familiar with, and the Galactic Standard Time, which the rest of the galaxy goes by. In the Galactic Standard Time, a day is divided into 20 hours, each hour is 100 minutes long, and each minute is 100 seconds long. However, 1 galactic second is about twice as fast as 1 Earth second, so it's basically a 50-second minute, and the days would be 15% longer than an Earth day. For convenience's sake, the narrative goes by the Earth Standard Time.