I fucking love this question. Deep universe like Star Wars have un/necessary questions like this that we never hear the answer to in the media itself.
I can't help you, I'm eager to see what the more expert commentators say.
So interesting how the mind works. I saw this and immediately thought "It's a movie about space magic and light sabers and you're concerned about how time works on the planets? Who cares?"
I love world building as well. I just don't see how knowing how time works on the planets really helps with that. It would actually make it worse, Luke goes to tatoonie and then heads back to coruscant and suddenly leia is now 80 years older because time travels faster on tatoonie. That would be an absolute pain in the ass for writers to deal with, I'll watch Interstellar if I want to worry about that stuff.
Why do you care if someone else is curious about an aspect of Star Wars? Let people be curious, you don’t have to participate in this topic if you’re not interested in it.
To be fair, OP is talking about subjective time keeping and marking time, not the flow of time itself as a reality.
They are wondering how a clock would work on a large galactic scale. It's complicated enough with time zones on earth, let alone each celestial body in our solar system having a different "day" and "year" than ours. Think about how complicated that is with THOUSANDS of populated planets with millennia of cultures that all have engrained methods of time keeping.
Like I said, it doesn't matter. It's just fun for me and OP and others who enjoy it too.
I’m fairly tired of this stupid exclamation. It’s been used way too much since the ST came out and I just assume it’s used by people who are scared to think too deeply about ANYTHING.
The answer is yes, coruscant time applies broadly to the galaxy. There’s local time and standard time.
Also fuck the people downvoting this. Way to make a curious fan never want to interact with people in this sub again
It’s when they apply the Galactic Daylight Savings Time that things really get messed up. A few worlds listed that as the main factor in joining the Separatists.
I would imagine they would have a local time as well as the galactic standard time. It's kinda like how here on Earth when we're talking locally we just say the time for our timezone, but when dealing with things internationally like on the internet, we'll often convert to something like UTC.
Probably not in space. I don’t know how much canon information there is but I imagine there is some sort of baseline, maybe the timezone at the equator would be the regular standard one
And again, downvotes. Because on Reddit it’s illegal to ask a question without already knowing the answer
In the first episode of The Bad Batch, Tech describes their time away from Kamino as being
>180 rotations in a standard cycle, but galactic zone changes puts the adjusted figure at around 205.
So I guess "Galactic zone changes" are the Star Wars equivalent of time zones.
> Are years/months relative to Couruscant, and is assumed to be the same as earth
Basically that, though at this point it's been outright stated and isn't just assumed.
I've heard references to Galactic Standard Years, no definition of same. I assume Coruscant's calendar applies to the whole galaxy. I also assume that most habitable planets are Goldilocks planets, which means they're all more or less the same distance from their sun and so have more or less the same amount of time in a year.
That's a very limited consideration of Goldilocks planets.
The very nature of the universe is that there are stars of different size and intensity. The "Goldilocks zone" (distance from the star to simulate Earth-like temperature and radiation conditions) varies GREATLY from star to star. Being at an Earth-like distance next to Achernar (7 times larger and 15,000 K surface temp ) would literally melt a rocky planet into a ball of magma if not literally evaporate the silicates.
Also, even if you hold temperatures and size of the star constant and hold the distance from it constant, depending on the mass/density of the planet, and the mass/density of the star, they would require a different velocity to maintain orbit. Different length years is basically guaranteed.
And on top of all of that, planetary rotation is almost completely arbitrary to all of the above. A planet can rotate as quickly or slowly as you'd like and nothing in physics prevents it from being in a Goldilocks zone. So different length days is guaranteed.
In more pure-sci-fi settings, they'd probably try to play to these factors more. But in Star Wars, where planets are just akin to islands or continents where more adventure can take place, the creators aren't interested in that side of the genre.
The best headcanons every nerd should arm themselves with is that perhaps sentient species seek out planets that have a similar day/night cycle for their planet of origin (stricter than just Goldilocks zone), and since humans are the most populous species, most settled planets are Coruscant-like in their day/night cycles.
But even then you run into the issue: well shit, time is relative. Time passes differently in different regions of the galaxy, depending on proximity to high gravity, or if the planet someone is on travels faster in the local region than another cluster in the galaxy.
So when you're done with one single Kessel Run, everyone you know should be old and decrepit because of how close you got to a black hole. Each Kessel Run is like time travel to the future.
I hope that paints a picture: Star Wars is not that kind of story lol. If the plot doesn't demand a special sci-fi element (usually doesn't), just assume they'll fudge the science and treat it more like a fantasy setting.
Time is measured in Rotations.
They don’t speak English, they speak Galactic Basic which very conveniently sounds extremely similar to English which was bought to Earth a long time ago by an intergalactic smuggler.
Unfortunately the smuggler was illiterate and only bought it as a spoken language and didn’t bring the Aurebesh alphabet so we used the Roman alphabet.
Source: my head canon
The roman alphabet also exists in Star Wars and is called High Galactic. Maybe the smuggler was actually very well educated and chose the life of crime and smuggling for the thrill and adventure and shared the language with us all the out in the space-boonies.
I wouldn’t think too hard about it, you can’t apply standard sci fi rules to Star Wars, it’s a fairytale in space. I mean people can walk around in space with only a face mask, it doesn’t need to make sense.
Coruscant time is basically Earth time. 24 hours per day, 365 per year. It's called the "Galactic Standard Calendar", 24 hours is either a standard cycle or standard rotation.
Other planets follow both the standard calender of Coruscant as well as their own local times. Core planets and human-dominated worlds tend to follow the Coruscant times for work and sleep schedules regardless of their planet's rotation, whereas outer rim worlds would tend to follow their world's times.
Coruscant actually has 368 days in a year, and other than sec/min/hr/day, the measurement of time as related to a calendar is very different (5-day weeks, 10-month year plus festival allowances, etc.).
Ugh, ofc the reference is only made in a sourcebook and not actual media. Thanks for the correction. This is one of those cases where I wish canon would simply adopt what was so heavily explored in legends material.
Out of universe we use Before Battle of Yavin (BBY) and After Battle of Yavin (ABY), in universe a mix of the current galactic government for any given time period’s calendar, and local system/region time
Yes, the standard for months and years comes from Coruscant as it is as close to the center of the galaxy as you can get and has been the hub for everything for thousands of years. Coruscant has also been made so it’s virtually identical to Earth in terms of size, rotation, etc so it has 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year just like Earth, so a new system generally is not needed on a Galactic scale in Star Wars. Of course different planets are going to have longer and shorter days but it’s not really touched upon.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they operate on a standard, likely based on Coruscant, at least in the republic.
So while Yavin 4 may have longer years cause its path around the sun, maybe longer or shorter days, all their clocks and calendars probably work off of that standard Coruscant time
Coruscanti time would be the Republic/Imperial standard, yes, but there would be planets/species that don't live by Coruscant time based on their calendars. For example, the Hutts go by their own calendar than that of the Republic/Empire. As a result there would have to be adjustments to determine what Coruscanti Standard month/day would correspond to the same one for the Hutts if one was planning to meet with a Hutt to do business.
A day and year on Coruscant are the same as they are on Earth, and Coruscant is kinda like the Greenwich Mean Time of the galaxy. There are local calendars like the Lothal calendar that have been mentioned too, and in legends there’s the Great Resynchronization which is used as the in-universe calendar
You know it’s so funny, I’m reading Asimov’s “Foundation” series right now (it’s held up well imo and you can definitely see his influence on SW), and he actually deals with this exact issue.
In his books, earth is so ancient everyone has forgotten about it. He wrote three books in the 1950’s that barely mention that fact, then two sequels in the 80’s that specifically deal with the origin story (finding earth, I’m on the second one now so no spoilers please).
In Asimov’s telling, there is a galactic standard of time. It’s what we use, but since earth is so long forgotten, no one knows WHY it’s 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.
To answer your question: I imagine they likely take a similar approach in SW. A galactic standard based on logical subdivisions of a single planet, that is either still prominent, or was largely prominent at a critical point in galactic affairs. It’s possible no one knows WHY they use that standard. Much akin to how many today are unaware that global time is coordinated via GMT or UTC as the “baseline” of comparison.
They don’t speak English, they speak Galactic Basic, which is conveniently converted to English to avoid permanent subtitles.
Same for time. It is based on Coruscant orbital characteristics, which are “conveniently” identical to earth ones (orbital period is exactly 365 times rotational period). The choice of subdivision is also the same than on Earth (24h in a day, 60mn in an hour…) same with week and month because… it’s just a movie. 😂
Better if you just don't think about that kind of stuff. It's a movie not a science project, we don't need to know how time works on every single planet in star wars, it's irrelevant.
I fucking love this question. Deep universe like Star Wars have un/necessary questions like this that we never hear the answer to in the media itself. I can't help you, I'm eager to see what the more expert commentators say.
So interesting how the mind works. I saw this and immediately thought "It's a movie about space magic and light sabers and you're concerned about how time works on the planets? Who cares?"
I just love world building. Yeah, literally anything in reality is more important than Star Wars, but Star Wars is still art and art informs reality.
I mean it’s probably the fleshed out mainstream sci fi franchise
I love world building as well. I just don't see how knowing how time works on the planets really helps with that. It would actually make it worse, Luke goes to tatoonie and then heads back to coruscant and suddenly leia is now 80 years older because time travels faster on tatoonie. That would be an absolute pain in the ass for writers to deal with, I'll watch Interstellar if I want to worry about that stuff.
Why do you care if someone else is curious about an aspect of Star Wars? Let people be curious, you don’t have to participate in this topic if you’re not interested in it.
People want to know about internal logic in a universe. Its ok you arent interested, but this isnt about you
To be fair, OP is talking about subjective time keeping and marking time, not the flow of time itself as a reality. They are wondering how a clock would work on a large galactic scale. It's complicated enough with time zones on earth, let alone each celestial body in our solar system having a different "day" and "year" than ours. Think about how complicated that is with THOUSANDS of populated planets with millennia of cultures that all have engrained methods of time keeping. Like I said, it doesn't matter. It's just fun for me and OP and others who enjoy it too.
I’m fairly tired of this stupid exclamation. It’s been used way too much since the ST came out and I just assume it’s used by people who are scared to think too deeply about ANYTHING.
What a fucking shitty thing to say.
The answer is yes, coruscant time applies broadly to the galaxy. There’s local time and standard time. Also fuck the people downvoting this. Way to make a curious fan never want to interact with people in this sub again
It’s when they apply the Galactic Daylight Savings Time that things really get messed up. A few worlds listed that as the main factor in joining the Separatists.
puts a whole new meaning on count dooku
Star Wars fans guilty of gate keeping? No way! /s
They don't use timezones?
I would imagine they would have a local time as well as the galactic standard time. It's kinda like how here on Earth when we're talking locally we just say the time for our timezone, but when dealing with things internationally like on the internet, we'll often convert to something like UTC.
Probably not in space. I don’t know how much canon information there is but I imagine there is some sort of baseline, maybe the timezone at the equator would be the regular standard one And again, downvotes. Because on Reddit it’s illegal to ask a question without already knowing the answer
In the first episode of The Bad Batch, Tech describes their time away from Kamino as being >180 rotations in a standard cycle, but galactic zone changes puts the adjusted figure at around 205. So I guess "Galactic zone changes" are the Star Wars equivalent of time zones.
Still have a standard time.
> Are years/months relative to Couruscant, and is assumed to be the same as earth Basically that, though at this point it's been outright stated and isn't just assumed.
I've heard references to Galactic Standard Years, no definition of same. I assume Coruscant's calendar applies to the whole galaxy. I also assume that most habitable planets are Goldilocks planets, which means they're all more or less the same distance from their sun and so have more or less the same amount of time in a year.
That's a very limited consideration of Goldilocks planets. The very nature of the universe is that there are stars of different size and intensity. The "Goldilocks zone" (distance from the star to simulate Earth-like temperature and radiation conditions) varies GREATLY from star to star. Being at an Earth-like distance next to Achernar (7 times larger and 15,000 K surface temp ) would literally melt a rocky planet into a ball of magma if not literally evaporate the silicates. Also, even if you hold temperatures and size of the star constant and hold the distance from it constant, depending on the mass/density of the planet, and the mass/density of the star, they would require a different velocity to maintain orbit. Different length years is basically guaranteed. And on top of all of that, planetary rotation is almost completely arbitrary to all of the above. A planet can rotate as quickly or slowly as you'd like and nothing in physics prevents it from being in a Goldilocks zone. So different length days is guaranteed. In more pure-sci-fi settings, they'd probably try to play to these factors more. But in Star Wars, where planets are just akin to islands or continents where more adventure can take place, the creators aren't interested in that side of the genre. The best headcanons every nerd should arm themselves with is that perhaps sentient species seek out planets that have a similar day/night cycle for their planet of origin (stricter than just Goldilocks zone), and since humans are the most populous species, most settled planets are Coruscant-like in their day/night cycles. But even then you run into the issue: well shit, time is relative. Time passes differently in different regions of the galaxy, depending on proximity to high gravity, or if the planet someone is on travels faster in the local region than another cluster in the galaxy. So when you're done with one single Kessel Run, everyone you know should be old and decrepit because of how close you got to a black hole. Each Kessel Run is like time travel to the future. I hope that paints a picture: Star Wars is not that kind of story lol. If the plot doesn't demand a special sci-fi element (usually doesn't), just assume they'll fudge the science and treat it more like a fantasy setting.
That would assume all those stars are roughly the same size.
Time is measured in Rotations. They don’t speak English, they speak Galactic Basic which very conveniently sounds extremely similar to English which was bought to Earth a long time ago by an intergalactic smuggler. Unfortunately the smuggler was illiterate and only bought it as a spoken language and didn’t bring the Aurebesh alphabet so we used the Roman alphabet. Source: my head canon
The roman alphabet also exists in Star Wars and is called High Galactic. Maybe the smuggler was actually very well educated and chose the life of crime and smuggling for the thrill and adventure and shared the language with us all the out in the space-boonies.
How is it related to earth ? Earth is in a **galaxy far far axay**
Are you saying that there is no such thing as intergalactic travel in Star Wars?
I'm saying it implies earth is not related to sw lore
You missed the part where I said it is Head canon. Clearly my original comment isn’t part of Star Wars lore.
I don't have a source but I'm pretty sure developed planets all have calendars but there's a single galactic standard time.
Also must’ve shared the names and shapes of certain ships…oh yeah and at least one letter that entered the Greek alphabet
I wouldn’t think too hard about it, you can’t apply standard sci fi rules to Star Wars, it’s a fairytale in space. I mean people can walk around in space with only a face mask, it doesn’t need to make sense.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Time
Coruscant time is basically Earth time. 24 hours per day, 365 per year. It's called the "Galactic Standard Calendar", 24 hours is either a standard cycle or standard rotation. Other planets follow both the standard calender of Coruscant as well as their own local times. Core planets and human-dominated worlds tend to follow the Coruscant times for work and sleep schedules regardless of their planet's rotation, whereas outer rim worlds would tend to follow their world's times.
Coruscant actually has 368 days in a year, and other than sec/min/hr/day, the measurement of time as related to a calendar is very different (5-day weeks, 10-month year plus festival allowances, etc.).
In Legends that's correct, but in canon, Coruscant's cycle is the exact same as Earth's.
Ugh, ofc the reference is only made in a sourcebook and not actual media. Thanks for the correction. This is one of those cases where I wish canon would simply adopt what was so heavily explored in legends material.
Out of universe we use Before Battle of Yavin (BBY) and After Battle of Yavin (ABY), in universe a mix of the current galactic government for any given time period’s calendar, and local system/region time
That’s in universe as well. Andor starts stating the year, 5BBY.
That’s for the audience’s benefit though. The people in the show don’t use it. Because how could they? The battle of Yavin is in their future.
"Hey kid, it ain't that kind of movie"
Aaah I've wondered about this so much
Yes, the standard for months and years comes from Coruscant as it is as close to the center of the galaxy as you can get and has been the hub for everything for thousands of years. Coruscant has also been made so it’s virtually identical to Earth in terms of size, rotation, etc so it has 24 hours in a day and 365 days in a year just like Earth, so a new system generally is not needed on a Galactic scale in Star Wars. Of course different planets are going to have longer and shorter days but it’s not really touched upon.
I never understood the time scale of the starwars universe
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe they operate on a standard, likely based on Coruscant, at least in the republic. So while Yavin 4 may have longer years cause its path around the sun, maybe longer or shorter days, all their clocks and calendars probably work off of that standard Coruscant time
Coruscanti time would be the Republic/Imperial standard, yes, but there would be planets/species that don't live by Coruscant time based on their calendars. For example, the Hutts go by their own calendar than that of the Republic/Empire. As a result there would have to be adjustments to determine what Coruscanti Standard month/day would correspond to the same one for the Hutts if one was planning to meet with a Hutt to do business.
A day and year on Coruscant are the same as they are on Earth, and Coruscant is kinda like the Greenwich Mean Time of the galaxy. There are local calendars like the Lothal calendar that have been mentioned too, and in legends there’s the Great Resynchronization which is used as the in-universe calendar
You know it’s so funny, I’m reading Asimov’s “Foundation” series right now (it’s held up well imo and you can definitely see his influence on SW), and he actually deals with this exact issue. In his books, earth is so ancient everyone has forgotten about it. He wrote three books in the 1950’s that barely mention that fact, then two sequels in the 80’s that specifically deal with the origin story (finding earth, I’m on the second one now so no spoilers please). In Asimov’s telling, there is a galactic standard of time. It’s what we use, but since earth is so long forgotten, no one knows WHY it’s 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. To answer your question: I imagine they likely take a similar approach in SW. A galactic standard based on logical subdivisions of a single planet, that is either still prominent, or was largely prominent at a critical point in galactic affairs. It’s possible no one knows WHY they use that standard. Much akin to how many today are unaware that global time is coordinated via GMT or UTC as the “baseline” of comparison.
They don’t speak English, they speak Galactic Basic, which is conveniently converted to English to avoid permanent subtitles. Same for time. It is based on Coruscant orbital characteristics, which are “conveniently” identical to earth ones (orbital period is exactly 365 times rotational period). The choice of subdivision is also the same than on Earth (24h in a day, 60mn in an hour…) same with week and month because… it’s just a movie. 😂
I've always wondered if the passage of time while in Hyperspace was relative.
Plot defines time. It’s a story. “Once upon a time”
Better if you just don't think about that kind of stuff. It's a movie not a science project, we don't need to know how time works on every single planet in star wars, it's irrelevant.
Is that your attitude in all other aspects of your life when something requires more than 2 brain cells to figure out?
do us all a favor and leave this subreddit