Having been sideways in time with SM Stirling's Black Chamber, we may now, in the company of Poul Anderson, move either back through time to the Eastern Roman Empire or forward to the period of the Terran Empire. But, since space is big, we are able to visit the Domain of Ythri as well as the Empire. Of course, we will move both backward and forward in time over the next few days.
Three of Anderson's novels:
Conan The Rebel;
The Dancer From Atlantis;
The Golden Slave -
- are set BC whereas the rest are AD. At school, a Latin teacher told us that, between the years 1 BC and 1 AD in our calendar, there was a single unnumbered year, Anno Domini, the Year of the Lord, but the Wikipedia article states that this is not the case. See here. (This makes a year's difference to the life of anyone who was born BC but died AD.) Other calendars do have a year zero, which I think is illogical. We count distances from zero but items, including years, from one.
I regard Volumes I-III of The Technic Civilization Saga as an extended Earth Book. (Scroll down.) The Earth Book Of Stormgate ends with:
"Lodestar," about the planet Mirkheim;
Hloch's note about the war for Mirkheim and its aftermath;
two short stories about the colonization of Avalon.
Saga, Volume II ends with "Lodestar."
Volume III comprises:
Mirkheim, about the war for Mirkheim;
Hloch's note as above;
the two stories about Avalon as above;
two stories showing the founding and early period of the Terran Empire;
The People Of The Wind which describes the Terran War on Avalon and provides the background for the Earth Book.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I have sometimes wondered why the era dating system worked out by Denis the Short has no Year Zero. Because it doesn't the beginnings of centuries and millenniums begins with "01" instead of "00." Was it merely because of the inadequate numbering system Denis used, with Roman LETTERS? Was it because there was no way, using Roman letters, to satisfactorily express ZERO?
Another curiosity is that it was because of ENGLISHMEN that the BC/AD era dating system was popularized. St. Bede the Venerable (d. AD 735) used it in his HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND PEOPLE, while the Anglo/Saxon scholar Alcuin popularized it at the court of Charlemagne. The Carolingian Empire encouraged its use thru out its dominions.
In the days of the Polesotechnic League and the Terran Empire, I can see human colonized planets working out calendars based on how long it took their planets to make a complete orbit around their suns. With the BC/AD era dates being used for dating events elsewhere in the known galaxy. Unless, of course, these "local years" were either too short or too long for convenient use, as a result of which some colonies would use the BC/AD system for local dates as well.
At least that is what I inferred from the only time we see a BC/AD date in any of the Technic stories, at the beginning of "The Saturn Game."
This past week I've started rereading Anderson's ROGUE SWORD. I've already reached page 90 in my paperback copy of that book.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But there should not be a year zero. I count ten apples from 1 to 10, not from 0 to 9. The same should apply to years. An infant of 6 months is not yet 1 year old but nevertheless he is in his 1st year of life, not in his zeroth year.
Zero is a point, not a length or period. If we mark out 12 inches, then the inches are numbered from 1 to 12, not from 0 to 11. The inches extend from point zero to point twelve.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I don't disagree, your argument makes sense to me. I mentioned the lack of a Year Zero in our BC/AD system because some think it makes more sense to date events from a year 0. E.g., instead of AD 1 to 100, with 101 marking the first year of the second century, some would argue for dating from AD 0 to 99, with 100 being the second century's first year.
But, like you, I prefer 101 as the first year of the second century, and so on!
Ad astra! Sean
Kaor, Paul!
Another thought I had, and one I should have included in my previous note, was that Denis the Short erred in his calculations of when Christ was born. He chose the AD 1 that we now use, but he erred by at least five years. Herod the Great died in 4 BC, which means Christ was born in either 6 or 5 BC. Thus, we should be using dates at least five years later than our current year. E.g., 2019 should be 2024.
This is a very small matter, I admit! But, it makes me wonder if there would have been any changes in our history from the dates being different? Small, subtle, hard to detect changes that would become obvious only as time passed?
And in Anderson's "Flight to Forever," we see mention of a religious sect which came to dominate Earth for a time, and which insisted in adding four years to the date, to correct Denis' error.
Ad astra! Sean
A year really isn't an item or physical thing; it's a descriptive term for a duration. "Year 0" represents "after X, but less than 365 days after it."
But I would still call that "Year 1," meaning "the 1st year after X."
An infant less than a year old is usually described as so many days, weeks or months old. For greater precision, we could specify "0 years, 6 months," instead of just "6 months," but we never say just "0 years."
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And on this matter I agree with Paul. E.g., AD 1 to 100 is clear and obvious, with AD 101 as the first year of the second century. I think a Year Zero would needlessly complicate matters.
Ad astra! Sean
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