Andalite Dates:
Key: 84 Earth months=1 Andalite Year =7 Earth Years.
1 Earth Month = 30 Earth Days. 84*30=2520 Days
Each Andalite year has 10 Andalite months (possibly each time the moons align) the number of days in an Andalite month is 2520÷10=252.
Chapter 1 of Hork-Bajir Chronicles Chapter 2 of Hork-Bajir Chronicles
Andalite Year 8561.2 8563.5
Human Year 1966 1968
Taking into account that an Andalite year is 84 Earth Months (roughly 7 years on earth) we must conclude that since only 2 rather than 7 years have passed on Earth (between chapters 1 and 2 of HBC) that the final two digits of the Andalite year (1.2 and 3.5) have both changed we must conclude that not every digit on the Andalite date refers to years or months.
Perhaps the .2 and the .5 refer to days and the final 1 and 3 before the decimal point refer to months like this.
Chapter 1 of Hork Bajir Chronicles Chapter 2 of Hork Bajir Chronicles
Andalite Date 2nd day 1st month 856th year 5th day 3rd month 856th year
856*7=5992 human years since Andalites began counting dates: since Andalites are considerably older than humans we must conclude that this date refers to a historical event (similar to the Islamic calendar that counts from the Hijra) rather than mythological event (like the Hindu calendar that counts from the mythological death of Krishna).
Since each Andalite month lasts 252 days, 3rd month must be the 505th day of the year.
505+5=510. It is therefore the 510th day of the Andalite year in chapter 2 of the Hork-Bajir Chronicles. Since Chapter 1 took place 2nd of the 1st month of the same year to find out how many days have passed 510-2=508 days.
Now this still gives slight difficulty with the human date
Unfortunately 2 years have passed on earth (1966-1968) or approximately 730 days, unless you conclude that it was late 1966 or early 1968 respectively.
Chapter 1 must have occurred in the later part of 1966 let’s say around the 1st of December/336th day of the year of 1966. To find when in 1968 this must have occurred we do this 508-336=172. Therefore chapter 2 must have occurred approximately on the 172nd day of 1968, which is around May…
The latter sums are all a bit approximate, better maths or ideas or clarification would be most welcome.
However it should also be noted that in Chapter 1 of the Hork-Bajir Chronicles, Aldrea seems very young (perhaps a toddler) and yet in Chapter 2 of HBC she seems to be in late adolescence. Perhaps 2 Andalite years have passed (which is to say 14 earth years) which is to say that it went from being 2nd month of 8561 year to the 5th month 8563 year, but due to space time relativity (or some other complex physics theory that I don’t understand) only 2 years have passed on Earth, this however presents a few problems: Andalites would basically age by 7 years for every 1 year that passed on earth, although it does explain why the war seems to have lasted hundreds of years to the Andalites when it is has really only been going on since the late 1960’s… if this is the case then Andalites have been counting their dates since 8561Andalite years*7=59927 human years, which points to a mythological date in history or ancient historical date at the latest, even for a species as old as the Andalites. But still yikes.
The Andalite Year:
As there are 2 Equinoxes and 2 Solstices each year totally 4:2520÷4=630. Equinoxes and Solstices occur every 630 days, Quarter-cross days occur every 315 days, marking the beginning of a new season, as in the Chinese calendar. Calculations are for the Northern Hemisphere; obviously this is reversed for the southern hemisphere (i.e. Summer Solstice occurs on the 2205th day of the year in the southern hemisphere):
1st Day: New Years Day, First Day of spring
253th day of the year: 2nd Month begins
316th day of the year: Spring Equinox, 63rd day of 2nd Month
505th day of the year: 3rd Month begins
631th day of the year: first day of summer, 126th day of 3rd Month
757th day of the year: 4th month begins
946th day of the year: Summer Solstice, 189th day of 4th month
1009th day of the year: 5th month begins
1029th day of the year: Ramika Day (north only), 20th day of 5th month (equivalent of Qixi festival)
1261th day of the year: 6th month begins, First Day of Autumn
1513th day of the year: 7th month begins
1564th day of the year: Autumn Holidays begin, 51nd of the 7th month.
1576th day of the year: Autumn Equinox, 63rd day of 7th month
1603rd day of the year: End of Autumn holidays, 91st of the 7th month.
1765th day of the year: 8th month begins
1891th day of the year: First day of winter, 126th day of 8th month.
2017th day of the year: 9th month begins
2206th day of the year: Winter Solstice, 189th day of 9th month
2269th day of the year: 10th month begins
2520th day of the year: New Years Eve, 252nd Day of 10th month
Not yet added arbitrary or historical festivals: Kheirawn Day (similar to the Taiwanese Confucius Day), Discovering Zero Space Flight Anniversary, Warrior’s Day, Electorate Day, and Arts Day etc…
New Years Eve occurs 315 days after the Winter Solstice. I haven’t yet decided how many Days the festivities should last: I am undecided between 14 days (as Andalites have 7 fingers on each hand) or 18 days which is fingers+4 hooves, or 28 days which is double the number of fingers, or 32 days which is double the number of fingers+ hooves or 36 days which is double fingers + double hooves. (Similar to the way that certain numbers are popular in amongst humans such as 3, 5, 10, 12)
Previously my calculations had the spring Equinox as New Years Eve or the 2520th day of the Andalite year, rather like the Persian calendar where New Year is the spring equinox (Nowruz). But this was based on a miscalculation (I had added 630 to 1 then doubled it and was surprised when the spring equinox was New Year’s see previous correspondence). Whilst other miscalculations made in this process was giving each Andalite month 250 days when the correct number was 252. The calendar is broadly based off the Chinese calendar (studying the Chinese calendar helped me decide on a date for new years-indeed Chinese New Year actually marks the beginning of spring). Unlike the Chinese calendar, my Andalite calendar is not lunisolar, for two reasons:
1. Lunisolar is very difficult to calculate and changes from year to year, as this article on Wikipedia demonstrates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_calendar2. According to Wikipedia Luna calendars are very useful for maritime cultures (this does not explain why the Islamic calendar is lunar) as they help calculate when tides will occur. As the Andalites are not a maritime species this would be irrelevant to them.
3. However the odd number of months 10 months in a year that lasts 2520 days was hypothesised to be based on the number of moon alignments so that Andalites must observe the moon sometimes.
Other things like the perihelion, moon alignment or full moons may be added in randomly? Other festivities based on other natural events shall be added as suggestions are given, as well as culturally based festivals or days marking historical events. I am still uncertain about leap years.
At the moment my Andalite months are called 1st month, 2nd month etc, since KA Applegate based a few things off Tolkien, I am thinking of using Elvish as a basis for Andalite linguistics... remember that calling months things like “wet month”, “cold month” etc would only be applicable to the northern hemisphere (or southern hemisphere if Andalites are a southern hemisphere based species unlike humans) which results in excluding 50% of Andalites, I tried basing the month names off the Eight Immortals of Chinese mythology, but this didn’t seem linguistically compatible with names like Alloran and Esgarrouth (which are both based off Tolkien’s Elvish)…
In the text Andalites seemed to have a great respect for authority and love of ritual, as an Asian studies student, this suggests a philosophy similar to Confucianism, taking into account Alloran’s jab to Loren “pray to whatever primitive gods you have human” implies that were probably once polytheists, they also seemed to glorify suicide which implies Shinto as their primitive/original religion (unless the Andalites aren’t Shinto but Stoics in the ancient Roman tradition). For this reason I based my Andalite festivals off Japanese and Chinese festivals, of course other fans might interpret Andalites very differently from me so I need to keep my calendar unbiased enough that fans with different interpretations can use this calendar as a useful tool to get consistent dates.
