Skip Ten Thousand Years?

Monday, December 26th, (1)2,016

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Ever since their inception, civilizations have faced the primordial task of timekeeping in a variety of ingenious ways. Most were guided by seasons, the position of stars in the sky, as well as remarkable historical and religious events.

As our world became more interconnected, societies coming into contact with each other faced a new challenge: who’s calendar to use?

The start of the most popular calendar in use today claims to be based around the time of the birth of Jesus Christ, a prominent figure in the history of three major Abrahamic religions. This has unavoidably meant the calendar has always had certain religious connotations implicit, despite the efforts of academics in recent decades to “neutralize them” by referring to the years after the birth of Jesus as the “Common Era”, and those before as “Before Common Era.” This before even considering that Jesus was almost certainly born sometime between 6 and 4 years BCE. This combined with the fact that the calendar has no year zero, means that calculation of dates before “Common Era” is further complicated.

What if we could do away with this bias once and for all?

On Monday, November 28th, 2016, a curious and popular bill reached the Grand Congress of the Union. Taking a proposal by Czervenikan-Estinian scientist Cesare Emiliani as a basis, the bill called for the official use of what it termed the Holocene Calendar. According to the bill, 10,000 should be added to the current year count, so that Neo-Meshikans would be celebrating the year 12,017 of the Human Era, on January 1st.

But why start 12,000 years ago? The date marks the approximate beginning of the Neolithic revolutions, when humans were making the transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural societies. The world’s oldest known temple, unearthed in southeastern Anatolia nearly three decades ago, has been dated to around this period.

So the rationale for such a system is simple: it eliminates the current distortion of our own view of human history. The current calendar system belittles 10,000 years of civilization and human progress made before the inception of Christianity in the Middle East. It is also more inclusive and representative of peoples of all creeds and cultures, not only those of Abrahamic religions.

The simplicity of adding only a 1 digit to the beginning of the year, without a massive overhaul of the currently established system of months, weeks and days, is another advantage.

The Holocene proposal proved exceptionally popular in the government and was passed within a week. It was signed into law by the President that Friday. In his speech, the President stated that the concept of the Human Era “fits nicely with the values of inclusiveness and secularity that have come to represent our Federation, domestically and abroad.”

The new calendar enters into official use on January 1st, the first day of the New Year, twelve thousand and seventeen. Certain sectors of government will have three more months to make the transition in their official recordkeeping and computer systems, while the general population and the rest of public industry will have six months.

Under the new system:

• 0 HE marks the beginning of the Holocene, or Human, Era
• 400 HE: Jericho, the first city on Earth, is founded
• Around 4000 HE: Humans begin to make use of metals
• Around 5000 HE: Proto-writing appears, and the wheel is invented; mummification is practiced in South Eretz 2,000 years before Ancient Misr
• Around 7000 HE: The first High Civilizations emerge, Stonehenge is built, and the first Ancient Peihanese Dynasty begins
• Around 8000 HE: the Olmec culture begins
• 9248 HE: According to legend, Prume is founded
• 9500 HE: Western culture begins
• 9800 HE: Prume becomes an Empire
• 9995 HE: Jesus is believed to have been born
• 10,570 HE: Prophet Muhammad is born
• 11,510 HE: the Dragon Emperor rises to power in Yuzan
• 11,590 HE: the Halloranian Silver Age begins
• 11,703 HE: First Sultanate of Meshiko established, following the dissolution of the Meshikan Empire
• 11,776 HE: The United States of Estinia is founded
• 11,961 HE: Krasniyan cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space
• 11,969 HE: Estinia puts a man on the Moon
• 12,011 HE: The Meshikan Revolution begins
• 12,013 HE: The International Union of Workers’ States is founded, Nuevo Meshiko is established
• 12,014 HE: Nuevo Meshiko finishes construction of the first permanent lunar base
• 12,015 HE: Estinia is devastated following the bombing of its capital, and collapses; Codeco is then founded by Hallorania and Nuevo Meshiko to aid development in the region
• 12,016 HE: Nuevo Meshiko becomes a Socialist Federation, Euraziya becomes a Socialist Confederation, construction of Orbital Tower in South Eretz begins
• 12,017 HE: 1st of January, Nuevo Meshiko officially adopts the Holocene Calendar