Talk:Units of time
Given the many DIVISIONS of Cycle, and the disagreement of terminology (Megacucle is used as everythign from hour to years) I suggest makign this the page for the various verions of cycle. Decacycle, megacycle, Gigacycle, etc.
And fore refernece, TF's first use of Cycles was Target 2006, whcich established that 1 cycle was EXACTLY 2 Earh Hours. -Derik19:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
- Shouldn't orns be added to this chart as well? I don't want to muck with that coding but otherwise I'd add it in. --ZacWilliam 10:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
That chart makes things out to be too clear cut. For example, I'm sure Megacycle had other uses in Beast Wars that don't correspond to years. And here to muddy up the waters even more is Furman's explanation of time units in the IDW-verse, from this thread on the IDW boards:
- A nano-klik is approximately one Earth second
- A klik is about 1.2 Earth minutes
- A cycle is about 1 hour 15 mins
- A mega-cycle is about 93 hours
- A deca-cycle is approx 3 weeks
- A stellar-cycle is 7.5 months (there or thereabouts)
- A Meta-cycle is about 13 months
So, uh, yeah. --KilMichaelMcC 11:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Stellar cycle sounds more like a year to me, given it sounds like the 'cycle' or orbit of Cybertron around its sun. --FFN 12:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, and...?
- Nothing prohibits Cybertron from going through one complete orbit of its' sun every 7.5 months. Nor from having a "day" 93 hours long [Venus has a 225-EarthDay "year" (7.4 months...) - and a 243-EarthDay DAY]. - SanityOrMadness 15:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Found the definition of Quartex, as Wheeljack brought up in the first G1 episode. 'Quartex' means a three-month period commencing on January I, April 1, July 1 or October 1 in a calendar year.
- Uh, I believe that is the definition of a quarter, with an R, and it's an Earthen definition anyway, not a Cybertronic one. --Steve-o 00:09, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
The main article's "Specific unit definitions" is sorted by name, thus we can see the differences of time units with same name in different continuity.I think I'd like to put the "Specific unit definitions" by different continuity here for ......errr, I don't know how to say, for convenience maybe? :) -- TX55 11:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Units of Time
Marvel Comics
- Breem
- 8.3 minutes
- Originally defined in the Marvel Comics, also used in Dreamwave's comics.
- Orn
- ???
- A unit of undetermined duration. It is apparently defined as "one Cybertronian lunar day".
- Vorn
- 83 years
- Originally defined in the Marvel Comics, also used in Dreamwave's comics.
Marvel UK comics
- Cycle
- 2 hours
- In the UK G1 comic story, "Target 2006", Ultra Magnus timed his mission on Earth in Cycles that were exactly equal to 2 hours.
- Groon
- ~1 hour
- Roughly equivalent to an hour. In the UK G1 comic story, "The Magnificent Six!", Megadeath let his broken Autobot prisoners go with a neutronic blast imminent in two groons. Retelling this event to Silverbolt in 1990, Jazz described the time as two hours.
- Joor
- ???
- Used idiomatically like "hour", but of unknown duration. In the UK G1 comic story, "The Magnificent Six!", Steamhammer had an inspection parade scheduled at 0700 joors, not long after Cybertron's lunar dawn.
Beast Wars
- Nano-klik
- ~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 comics.
- Milli-Cycle
- ???
- A unit of undetermined duration. It was often mentioned since Episode 6 in Beast Wars cartoon.
- Cycle
- ~1 minute
- 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.
- Mega-cycle
- ~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 Tripedicus 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.[1] This may be the unit that was intended for that line of dialogue.
- Day
- ~20 hours
- A unit of undetermined name. As with the Beast Wars cycle, this unit is on the order of a day on Cybertron, as defined by the series' story editors.
- Deca-cycle
- ~30 days
- As with the Beast Wars cycle, this unit is on the order of a month, as defined by the series' story editors.
- Stellar cycle
- ~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.
IDW universe
- Klik
- 1.2 minutes
- Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.
- Cycle
- 1 hour 15 minutes (1.25 hours)
- Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.[2]
- Deca-cycle
- ~3 weeks
- Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.
- Mega-cycle
- 93 hours
- Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.
- Meta-cycle
- 13 months
- Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.
- Stellar cycle
- ~7.5 months
- Defined for use in the IDW universe by Simon Furman in a forum post.
Miscellaneous
- Astrosecond
- .498 seconds
- Defined by Dreamwave's More Than Meets The Eye #8 as 1/1000th of a breem. Astroseconds as referenced in the 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 millenium 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.
- Quartex
- ???
- A unit of undetermined duration. In the very first Transformers cartoon episode, "More Than Meets The Eye, Part 1", Wheeljack complains that the shoddy energy conductors he and Bumblebee picked up don't have enough juice in them to last a quartex, so make of that what you will.
