A.Y. System

The Alliance Year or A.Y. System is the standardized calender used by the Unity Earth Sphere Alliance.

In the A.Y. System, the year is expressed as the Age followed by the number of years that have passed in that Age. So for examble 6500 would be the 500th year of the Sixth Age.

Units

A year is defined as a Dimensional Standard Year, lasting exactly 365 days. Most inhabited planets have a solar year of roughly 365 days, with a day lasting roughly 24 hours. On average, this system works for establishing dates, with some local variations. For years it is mostly accurate.

An Age is 1000 Dimensional Standard Years. Ages count from 0 to 999, so the exact rear of the age can always be expressed as a 3 digit number. Hence, Year 1000 of the Fifth Age is actually Year 0 of the Sixth Age, Year 1 is technically the second year.

Notations

A.Y. dates are always given as A.Y. (Year), unlike the B.G.A. System in which the year can be written on either side of B.G.A.

Dates are written as (Age)(Year of Age), so A.Y. 10 is actually Year 0 of the First Age.

Because of this confusion, dates can be written either by the abreviated A.Y. (Age)(Year of Age), or by the more formal Year (Year of Age) of the (Age) Age.

Example: A.Y. 6902 and Year 902 of the Sixth Age are describing the same year.

Establishment of the A.Y. System

The A.Y. System was created in A.Y. 1998 by Pendragon Scott Sagen, with the establishment of the Unity Earth Sphere Alliance.

Prior to that, all nations used their own independant callenders, making it very difficult to synchronize dates. A universal callender, Sagen felt, was an important step to bringing the fractured alliance back together.