It was in 71289 – the seven-hundredth year of the Tuan dynasty – that the galactic council decreed a new calendar, which would improve upon the old calendar by virtue of not taking as its basis the revolution of a tiny planet near the center of the Andromeda galaxy, which orbited so close to its home star that it took a mere million seconds or so to make it all the way around.
Or rather, it was in Year Zero that the galactic council decreed the new calendar, because immediately upon issuing their decree, they ordered all official calendars changed and forbade public officials to use the old calendar. No longer could the current year be marked with reference to the history of the previous seventy-one thousand two hundred and eighty-eight years – which would henceforth be demarcated with negative numbers, as in, “In the year minus seventy-five, the galactic council was dissolved by a military junta which held sway until the year minus fifty-six, in which another revolution reestablished the council and exiled all members of the junta to the Milky Way.” No, the year was officially Year Zero, and had always been Year Zero, and there had never been such a year as Year 71289. At least according to the new calendar.
The new calendar would be based on the average revolution of the average inhabited star in the Andromeda Galaxy. Although, since one populous world in the outer reaches of the Nebuloan system took nearly a novemdecillion seconds to orbit around its star,1 it was agreed that outliers would be thrown out of the average.
Unfortunately, the council failed to anticipate the raging debate which broke out almost immediately after the decree went out: namely, was Year Zero in the first decade of the new calendar, or the last decade of the old? For that matter, would Year Ten be in the second decade, or the first? Would the hundredth year be year ninety-nine? Or would Year Zero not count towards the total number in future decades?
Self-assured experts quickly began to explain that the first year of a new millennium was not 1000, but 1001. But then they were reminded that this was under the old calendar, where there hadn’t been a Year Zero. Surely, then, if year 1000 was the one-thousand-and-first year, it had to count as part of the second millennium.
“Assuming we even live that long,” said one pseudonymous comedian on late night holovision.
The galactic council issued a proclamation that they had created Year Zero precisely in order to avoid the debates currently raging in the metropolises of the galaxy. The point was to settle the question once and for all by clearing up any confusion about whether or not the tenth year was Year Ten.
But quickly, there was new confusion. “You mean to tell me that the year we’re going to be calling ‘Year Ten’ will be the eleventh year?” asked the same pseudonymous comedian. “How does that make any sense? Why call it ‘Year Ten’ if it’s not the tenth year?”
Much was made of the theory that in Year Zero, nothing that happened actually counted because the calendar hadn’t actually started and this was merely a period of readjustment before the resumption of ordinary time. One petitioner to the council, a three-foot marsupial who by some act of bureaucratic mismanagement, was actually granted an audience, tried to convince the esteemed members of the most important political body in the universe that he shouldn’t have to pay taxes until Year One.
“But this year doesn’t count, see?” he told them. “Why’m I bein’ assessed at six-fifths’ve my contribution last year? How can ‘at be when there ‘asn’t been a last year? If this is Year Zero, then there isn’t a last year innit?”
Councilwoman Bradshaw, whose feathers were almost turning gray with age, motioned to a couple of security officers who stepped quickly to stand on either side of the quavering mammal.
“Yes, well, I will personally have my office look into your tax burden, Citizen…”
“Edgar.”
“Edgar.”
“Yes, madam.”
“Do you have a surname, Edgar?” asked the councilwoman.
“No, just Edgar.”
“Very well, then, Edgar of Fontaine IX in the Spurio system…”
“Fontaine XI, madam.”
“Ah, yes. Citizen Edgar of Fontaine XI. I will have my office instruct the Bureau of Taxation that your taxes be lowered by twenty percent, so that you won’t pay any more than you paid last year.”
“But, madam, that’s the thing. If this is Year Zero, there was no last year.”
“Then I will instruct my office to have your taxes lowered by twenty percent, so that you won’t pay any more than you would remember paying last year if there had been a last year,” replied the councilwoman, aware that there was no point in trying to explain to the small creature that just because the calendar no longer registered 71288 S.A.F. as a year, didn’t mean there hadn’t been a previous year. After all, the calendar still had an entry for the previous year. It was just labeled, “Minus One.”
“You handled that well,” said Councilman Jaret, a lizard from a small village on the sixth world in the Jupine system.
“Thank you.”
“You know, my daughter – she’s already an adolescent you know; Feegs reach maturity inside ten standard months – is telling me that the calendars were changed to coincide with the year of her birth. The universe began the day she was born, and now the galactic system of dating reflects that.”
“Is that so?” asked Councilwoman Bradshaw, feigning interest.
The new years had been divided up into ten equal months, called standard months, each of which contained however many days a given world experienced within that time. Since each planet rotated at a different rate, and some planets rotated not at all, it would have been extremely confusing to have a standard day with no correspondence to the rising or setting of the sun on any of the inhabited planets in the Andromeda galaxy. Still, there was some confusion on worlds such as Frath, where a single rotation of the planet took approximately fifty-thousand standard years, and on Yunea, which was known to rotate so quickly that nighttime typically only lasted for a matter of minutes. The lifeforms on these worlds had evolved to live according to these patterns, and while most Andromedan citizens couldn’t survive very long under such odd rhythms, both worlds were key members of the galactic community.
It wasn’t long before the galactic council was hearing from other aggrieved parties concerned about the calendar. The Mygmies claimed that zero was a holy number, and could never be uttered or put into print in their language. Admittedly, their petition was quite confusing, since they refused to use the word “zero,” instead referring to “that year which comes between Year Minus One and Year One.” Confusion owing to this circumlocution led to a delegation of Mygmies beings granted an audience. Their petition went something like this.
“Most esteemed council of the Andromeda Galaxy, it has come to our attention that you have renamed the year 71289, Year That-Number-Which-We-Must-Not-Name, and we wanted to ask you to reconsider this ill-advised move. If you were to instead label the current year ‘Year One,’ we would not be forced to avoid saying the name of the year.”
“But we’ve already printed all of the calendars, said Jjahnl Humboden. We’d have to order trillions of new ones.”
“Ah yes,” said the Mygmies, “But we cannot read those calendars, as they contain a number we cannot say.”
“Which number is that?” asked Councilwoman Tarret, who was a little slow on the uptake.
“Year Zero,” said Councilwoman Bradshaw.
Immediately, the Mygmies all covered their hands over their ears and pretended to sing.
“Oh, knock it off, would you?” asked Bradshaw. “It’s just a number. It can’t hurt you.
“Your grace,” said one of the orderlies. “They can’t hear the word spoken. Some of them have radioactive monitors inside of them which will explode if ever a code word is spoken in their presence.”
Bradshaw glanced over at the orderly. “And ‘zero’ is the code word?” she asked. But the yells of the Mygmies grew louder and louder to drown this out. Bradshaw shook her head and ordered that security escort the Mygmies from the room. A pair of oversized ducklings was ushered into the council room next.
The hearings went on in much the same manner for the rest of the afternoon. A group of seagull-trainers came in to complain about how the calendar change would affect their livelihoods.
“But how exactly?” asked Jaret.
The answer was always that a change in the calendar would affect the rhythms of the day and season. Eventually, the council grew tired of this line of argument and ordered the meeting adjourned.
“What are we going to do now?” asked Councilman Jaret.
“Give up,” replied Councilwoman Tarret.
“How? Can we just announce we’re returning the entire galaxy to the old calendar?”
“Who says we have to tell them?” asked Tarret.
“But won’t people notice?” asked Bradshaw.
“They haven’t before,” replied Tarret darkly.
It was in the autumn of that year – or what would have been autumn had there been a stable year based on the movements of a stable planet in a stable orbit around its sun – that the calendars were quietly changed back to 71289. Few people noticed, except for the historians arguing over whether 71289 was the 71289th year, or the 71290th year.
“I don’t care,” screamed Bradshaw when she found out. “Just pick one and go with it. Stop wasting our time.”
But given that there was nothing for the council to do except sit and wait for disgruntled citizens to make their voices heard, Bradshaw found that – all her wishes to the contrary – the matter of the changing calendar was increasingly taking up more of her time.
The solution to all this was a new decree that both calendars would be considered standard and citizens could use whichever one their preferred.
Which was how it came to be that an emergency session was called to discuss the now-hardening irreconcilable differences between the “Zeros” as they called themselves, and the Calendarians, who preferred the old calendar. Representatives from both were invited to the meeting, but at the last minute, Bradshaw switched the invitations, so that each group received the invite in the wrong dating system. The Zeros heard about the year 71289 and the Calendarians were told to report during year zero.
When the day for the meeting came, nobody showed up. Bradshaw and Jaret breathed sighs of relief.
“We dodged a bullet,” Bradshaw said.
“Indeed,” said Jaret.
The seven members of the council sat there and breathed a sigh relief. At last, perhaps the ordeal was over.
But they Yungsli, who wouldn’t talk to save his own life at times, and whose mouth put him into trouble on others, raised his hand.
“Wait,” he said. “So which did we ultimately decide?”
“Which what?” asked Bradshaw.
“Is it Year Zero, or Year 71289??”
Immediately, all the councilmembers began talking at once. And to Councilwoman Bradshaw’s horror, they all had a different opinion.
In theory, that was. As far as anyone knew, intelligent life in the universe had not been around long enough to see one full revolution.