STARDATE MILESTONE
by Hazed
Humans invest a great deal of significance in round numbers, much to the amusement of other species. Why is there something pleasing about a year that ends in two zeroes, marking the end of a century, or three to indicate a new millennium? Non-humans find it mystifying.
So our human readers will no doubt be interested to learn that if they had typed ‘TIME’ around 2:40am on Friday they would have seen this:
Stardate: 150000:0000
All those zeroes in a row look like they mean something. Maybe we should throw a party. Woohoo.
But in fact all it signifies is that 1.5 billion seconds have passed since the start of the space age.
Actually, it’s not that accurate… those who decided on this way to record time in Fed DataSpace chose 1 January 1970 as the date to start the clock ticking from, because it was the start of the first year after humans walked on the moon. Students of history will know that momentous occasion was on 20 July 1969. But the planners rounded down!
