Of Time and Space and Other Things

In any story that involves distant star systems and alien cultures, there is a problem with measuring things. Humans have developed earth centric units of time and space and other things. Hours, minutes, and seconds are divisions and subdivisions of the rotational period of our planet. The metric system of distance measurement is based on the circumference of the planet earth at the equator, and the English system is arbitrarily based on obscure things in English history. Alien cultures will naturally measure time and distance differently.

Time

Time is a particularly perplexing problem. It is likely that alien civilizations that inhabit a single planet will base the measurement of time on the natural rotational or orbital period of their own planet. It is unclear what a civilization such as the Castarians, Axions, or Beltarians, who inhabit many planets, might do, yet one thing is certain: they would not use measurements of time that we are accustomed to.

In Crystal Pyramid, I took into account that the moon of Travix Seven and the artificial Beltaria would have different days than earth. In Star Children, where many more star systems, planets, and civilizations are involved, dealing with multiple time measurement systems would be complex, confusing, and entirely arbitrary, since this is, after all, a work of fiction. Therefore, I have used earth centric units of time. To do anything else would simply distract from the story.

Height and Weight

A similar issue exists with other measurements. When I describe the height and weight of a typical member of a species I have tried to use relative comparisons rather than numbers. A Finul, for example, is only half the height of the average human. There are times when this will not suffice, in which case I have used centimeters for height, kilograms for weight, and kilometers for distance. While many readers may be more familiar with the English system of feet, pounds and miles,

I simply refuse to believe that thousands of years from now any part of the human race will still base measurements on things like feet.

If this use of earth centric measurements concerns you, please consider them a translation of alien measurements to more familiar units. Beltarians, Axions, and Castarians don't speak English, but everything they say has been translated to English for the benefit of the reader. So too have the measurements of time and distance.

Distance

Longer distances I have expressed in kilometers, or often billions of kilometers. As a point of reference, the average distance between the earth and the sun (it varies with orbital position) is 150 million kilometers. This is called an Astronomical Unit or AU. I have avoided the use of AU's because they are still earth centric and much less familiar than the kilometer to most people. Pluto is 5 billion kilometers from the center of our solar system.

Interstellar distances are—well—astronomical. We all know it takes a little over 8.3 minutes for light to travel from the sun to earth. That is a long way in human terms. The closest star to us is Alpha Centauri. It is 4.2 light years away. That means it is 271 thousand AU. In other words, you would have to travel to the sun and back 135 thousand times to cover the same distance you need to go to get to our closest neighboring star.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way is 100,000 light years across. Note that a light year is still an earth centric measurement since it is the distance light will travel in one earth year. Also note that a light year is a measurement of distance, not time, and not velocity. In Star Children, I have used the term light-year. There is no point in making up a fictitious Beltarian unit of distance, when a light-year is understandable to the reader.

Velocity and Hyperspace

Velocity is the one metric for which we have a non-earth centric unit. It is c, the speed of light. The speed of light is the same everywhere, or so at least we currently believe it to be. Of course if we convert from c, to kilometers/second, or something similar, we are back to earth centric units.

Travel at faster than c speeds is necessary for any story involving multiple star systems and interstellar travel. Consider this: if you travel at c, it would take you 4.2 years to get to Alpha Centauri. Interesting stories that involve interstellar travel are not possible at sub-light speeds.

The long accepted concept of hyperspace for faster than light travel is used in the Galaxy Keeper series. However, nowhere do I state exactly how fast the ships travel other than in relative terms. The new Celi is 50 times faster than the old Celi, but nowhere does it say how fast that is.

So How Fast is Celi?

For those interested in the numbers and in trying to determine how far the ships travel and how fast, I will reveal the numbers. There is nothing here that adds anything to the story so readers bored by the numbers should skip this part.

The old Celi (Crystal Pyramid) traveled at a maximum of 100 times the speed of light. It took her a year to cross the area of space explored by the Galactic League. That means the area of space known to humans and Ventrons prior to the discovery of the Crystal Pyramid was 100 light years across. To put this in perspective remember that the Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light years across. The League had only explored an extremely small part of the galaxy before they met the Galaxy Keeper.

The old Celi took 18 days to travel from Diogenes Station to Travix Seven. That makes Travix Seven about five light years from Diogenes Station. As a reference Alpha Centauri is 4.2 light years from earth.

The new Celi is 50 times faster than the old Celi making her top speed equal to 5,000 times the speed of light. It takes her two weeks to travel from League space to the area of space where Delstar Four and Sanctuary are located. That means the two areas of space are 200 light years apart.

Celi is 100 times faster than a harvester, so they travel at a maximum of 50 c. She is 50 times faster than a man-of-war meaning they top out at 100 c. The times it requires the various ships to reach locations in Star Children are calculated using these numbers.

One final note on this topic: 5,000c seems like an extraordinarily large number, and it is, but it would still require 20 years for Celi to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other. The galaxy is an extraordinarily large place, and yet it is only a speck in relation to the size of the universe.

How truly insignificant we humans are!