Editing Units of time

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<font size="4">'''[[Units of time/Continuity|»]]'''</font> ''See units of the times sorted by '''[[Units of time/Continuity|Continuities]]'''.''</div>[[Transformer]]s, being extraterrestrials, are often overheard stating measurements in units that are unfamiliar to [[Human|humans]].  Further, Transformers in different [[Continuity|universes]] often use different units for measurement, and sometimes even use the same unit name but define it differently.  Following is a list of '''units of [[Time]]''' that Cybertronians have been observed using.
==Specific unit definitions==
{|class="wikitable"
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!width="25%"|Name
!width="25%"|Duration
!width="50%"|Description
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|'''Astrosecond'''||.498 seconds||Defined by Dreamwave's ''[[More Than Meets The Eye (G1)|More Than Meets The Eye]]'' #8 as 1/1000th of a breem. Astroseconds as referenced in the [[The Transformers (cartoon)|''Generation 1'' cartoon]] seem to be much shorter, but were never defined. In particular, in "[[Divide and Conquer]]" Shockwave states that the [[Space bridge]] will materialize within 72 billion astroseconds, an interval exceeding a millennium if Dreamwave's definition is applied. Even ignoring this extreme case, astroseconds in general cartoon use appeared to be much less than one second each.
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|'''Breem'''||8.3 minutes||Originally defined in the [[Marvel Comics]], also used in [[Dreamwave Productions|Dreamwave's]] comics.
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|'''Century'''||???||In the ''[[Transformers Animated (cartoon)|Transformers Animated]]'' premiere, "[[Transform and Roll Out]]", several references are made to the [[Great War (G1)|Great Wars]] ending "centuries ago", all prior to first contact between Transformers and [[Earth]]. This is probably a case of dialogue being written for human observers rather than indicating the existence of a "Cybertronian century", but it is included here for completeness. Similarly, the history video at the very beginning of the episode refers to "millions of years", an Earth unit. It is unclear how this time should be interpreted. Starscream also refers to the search for the All Spark as lasting "centuries", which is at odds with Megatron's own statement that it has been "four million solar cycles" (see below).
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|'''Cycle''' (Animated)||???||In "[[Rise of the Constructicons]]", [[Bumblebee (Animated)|Bumblebee]] asks [[Optimus Prime (Animated)|Prime]] if he can take a coolant break.  Prime responds that he just had a break "two cycles ago".  From this it sounds as if a cycle is relatively short -- less than a day, certainly -- but its actual duration is unclear.  In "[[Black Friday (episode)|Black Friday]]", Prowl challenges Bumblebee to stay quiet for "ten cycles", and he talks 30 to 40 seconds later. Prowl then informs Bumblebee that he managed to stay quiet for "barely half a cycle", implying that it is close to a minute.
|-
|'''Cycle''' (G1 UK comics)||2 hours||In the United Kingdom Generation 1 comic story, "[[Target: 2006]]", [[Ultra Magnus (G1)|Ultra Magnus]] timed his mission on Earth in Cycles that were exactly equal to 2 hours.
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|'''Cycle''' (Beast Wars)||~1 minute||[[Beast Wars (cartoon)|''Beast Wars'' cartoon]] story editors [[Bob Forward]] and [[Larry DiTillio]] stated that the "cycles" used in their series were ''very roughly'' equivalent to a minute.  Maybe more, maybe less, but something of that order of magnitude.
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|'''Cycle''' (IDW comics)||1 hour 15 minutes (1.25 hours)||Defined for use in the IDW universe by [[Simon Furman]] in a forum post.<ref name="furman">[http://forum.idwpublishing.com/viewtopic.php?t=150 Simon Furman defines IDW units in an IDW forum post]</ref>
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|'''Decacycle''' (Animated)||???||In "[[A Fistful of Energon]]", [[Ultra Magnus (Animated)|Ultra Magnus]] calls to report that [[Starscream (Animated)|Starscream]] has escaped.  He says that it happened "a decacycle ago", and that he would have called sooner but their [[Tachyon transmitter]] was missing.  (The spelling, without a hyphen, comes from closed captions and differs from the ''Beast Wars'' spelling.)
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|'''Deca-cycle''' (Beast Wars)||~1 year||As with the ''Beast Wars'' cycle, this unit is on the order of a year, as defined by the series's story editors.
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|'''Deca-cycle''' (IDW comics)||~3 weeks||Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.<ref name="furman" />
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|'''Groon'''||~1 hour||Roughly equivalent to an hour. In "[[The Magnificent Six!]]", [[Megadeath]] let his broken Autobot prisoners go with a neutronic blast imminent in two groons. Retelling this event to [[Silverbolt (G1)|Silverbolt]] in 1990, [[Jazz (G1)|Jazz]] described the time as two hours.
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|'''Joor'''||???||Used idiomatically like "hour", but of unknown duration. In "[[The Magnificent Six!]]", [[Steamhammer (G1)|Steamhammer]] had an inspection parade scheduled at 0700 joors, not long after Cybertron's lunar dawn.
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|'''Klik'''||1.2 minutes||Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.<ref name="furman" />
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|'''Lightyear'''||(a very long time)||Used exclusively in the [[Unicron Trilogy]], a lightyear is an epochal unit of time.<ref>A [[Primus|unique digital entity]] came into being lightyears ago, and created the Transformers. {{storylink|First Encounter}}</ref><ref>[[Omega Supreme (Energon)|Omega Supreme]] fought Unicron lightyears before Optimus Prime's Autobots even existed. {{storylink|Omega Supreme (episode)|Omega Supreme}}</ref>
|-
|'''Megacycle''' (Animated)||~1 day or ~1 hour||In "[[Lost and Found (episode)|Lost and Found]]" Ratchet estimated that it would take 10 mega-cycles to repair the [[Teletran-1|Autobots' ship]] even with the help of the [[Key]].  The Autobots seemed to consider this to be a moderately long time, but not so long for it to be unrealistic that they might repair the ship before the Decepticons come at them in force.  Later, in "[[Rise of the Constructicons]]", [[Bulkhead (Animated)|Bulkhead]] defends the [[Constructicon (Animated)|Constructicons]]' behavior, asserting that "they've been online two, three megacycles tops."  Thus, the megacycle may be daylike in duration, but this is quite uncertain.  (The spelling, without a hyphen, comes from closed captioning and differs from the ''Beast Wars'' spelling.)
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|'''Mega-cycle''' (Beast Wars)||~1 hour||As with the ''Beast Wars'' cycle, this unit is ''on the order of'' an hour, as defined by the series' story editors.  Used incongruously in "[[The Agenda (Part 1)]]" to refer to a much longer span of time.  (One of the [[Tripredacus Council]] says, "His ship and the Axalon both vanished last megacycle. The Maximal probes never found them.")  [[Ben Yee]] cites a statement from DiTillio that another unit—the deca-cycle—is roughly year-like in length.[[http://www.bwtf.com/bw/tvshow/geninfo.shtml|[1]]]  This may be the unit that was intended for that line of dialogue.
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|'''Mega-cycle''' (IDW comics)||93 hours||Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.<ref name="furman" />
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|'''Meta-cycle'''||13 months||Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.<ref name="furman" />
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|'''Milli-cycle'''||???||A unit of undetermined duration. It was often mentioned since Episode 6 in [[Beast Wars (cartoon)|''Beast Wars'' cartoon]].
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|'''Nanoclick''' (Animated)||~1 second or ~1 minute?||In "[[Home Is Where the Spark Is]]", Optimus Prime enters Prowl's quarters asking, "Prowl, got a nanoclick?" Also, in "[[A Fistful of Energon]]" [[Lockdown]] tells [[Prowl (Animated)|Prowl]] to "Wait a nanoclick."  Idiomatically, then, this nanoclick is similar to either the English unit "second" or "minute", although its actual length is unknown.  (The spelling of this unit comes from closed captions and differs from the ''Beast Wars'' spelling.)
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|'''Nano-klik''' (Beast Wars)||~1 second||As with the ''Beast Wars'' cycle, this unit is ''on the order of'' a second, as defined by the series' story editors. Used similarly in [[IDW Publishing|IDW]] comics.
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|'''Orbital Cycle'''||~1 day||In ''[[A Bridge Too Close, Part I]]'', [[Starscream (Animated)|Starscream]], after hearing all his clones, mutters to himself: "This is going to be a LONG orbital cycle", in reference to the phrase: "This is going to be a LONG day."
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|'''Orn'''||???||A unit of undetermined duration. It is apparently defined as "one Cybertronian lunar day".
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|'''Quartex'''||~1 Earth month||[[Starscream (Movie)|Starscream]] commanded the Decepticons for "nearly a Quartex" after the battle of [[Mission City]].{{storylink|The Reign of Starscream Issue Number Four|RoS#4}}  When [[Barricade (Movie)|Barricade]] summoned him back to [[Earth]] shortly after, exactly one month had passed.{{storylink|Alliance issue 1|Alliance #1}}
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|'''Solar cycle''' (Animated)||~1 year||In "[[Transform and Roll Out]], Part 1", Megatron says he has spent "the last four million solar cycles searching the galaxy" for the All Spark. The parallel to ''Generation 1'''s famous "four million years" implies that this unit is meant to be year-like.  In "Part 3" Starscream refers to the 50-years of searching between the battle where "he defeated Megatron" and the present as 50 solar cycles, cementing this definition.  In "Part 2", Optimus Prime and Ratchet have an exchange in which they use "solar cycle" in a way that is a better idiomatic match for "day" than "year", but, "year" can still work in that case.  ("Stellar cycle" has also been used, but appears to be the same unit; see below.)
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|'''Solar cycle''' (Beast Machines)||~1 day||In the ''Beast Machines'' episode "[[The Weak Component]]", Rattrap uses the term "half a solar cycle" to describe the amount of time the Maximal would leave Megatron alone in order to regain his strength: one night, from dusk-to-dawn.
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|'''Stellar cycle''' (Animated)||~1 year||In the ''Animated'' episode "[[Along Came a Spider]]", [[Blackarachnia (Animated)|Blackarachnia]] says that her accident occurred "a thousand stellar cycles" ago.  Further, in "[[Megatron Rising - Part 2]]" [[Megatron (Animated)|Megatron]] refers to both "fifty stellar cycles" and "four million stellar cycles", synching up with previous references to solar cycles.  Thus, stellar cycle is apparently synonomous with solar cycle in this continuity.  It is possible that while solar cycles refer to a unit of time based on a planet's rotation around the sun, a stellar cycle is a roughly equivalent universal standard used by the Transformers, who inhabit multiple planets with doubtless varying solar years.
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|'''Stellar cycle''' (Beast Wars)<span id="bw_year"></span>||~400 days||Orbital period (a Cybertronian "year") for Cybertron as stated by Larry DiTillio in information sent to Ben Yee. DiTillio also volunteers that Cybertron's rotational period (a "day") is ~20 hours.
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|'''Stellar cycle''' (IDW comics)||~7.5 months||Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.<ref name="furman" />
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|'''Trimara'''||???||Used in [[The Ascending issue 2|''Transformers: Beast Wars: The Ascending'' #2]]. Likely "3" of something, but who knows what.
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|'''Vorn'''||83 years||Originally defined in the [[Marvel Comics]], also used in [[Dreamwave Productions|Dreamwave's]] comics.
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|'''Decivorn'''||8.3 years<ref>Assuming the prefix "deci" works the same here as in the [[wikipedia:SI prefix|metric system]].</ref>||{{storylink|The New World}}
|}

==References==
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[[Category: Measurements]]