Standard year

< Standard year
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"If these new droids do work out, I want to transmit my application to the Academy this year."
"You mean the next semester before the harvest?"
"Sure, there's more than enough droids."
"Harvest is when I need you the most. Only one more season. This year we'll make enough on the harvest so I'll be able to hire more hands. And then you can go to the Academy next year. You must understand I need you here, Luke."
"But it's a whole 'nother year."
―Luke Skywalker and Owen Lars[1]

A standard year, also known more simply as a year or formally as Galactic Standard Year,[2] was a standard measurement of time in the galaxy. The term year often referred to a single revolution of a planet around its star, the duration of which varied between planets; the standard year was specifically a Coruscant year, which was the galactic standard.[3][4] The Coruscant solar cycle was 368 days long with a day consisting of 24 standard hours.[5]

The length of a planetary year was determined by the orbital radius and speed of the planet. Satellite planets—moons orbiting a gas giant—were almost always tide-locked to the gas giant they orbited, and may have had days several dozen hours long (as long as it took the satellite to orbit the gas giant). The local year of a satellite depended on the orbit of the gas giant and may have been several standard years long.[6]

A standard year had been originally defined as 10 standard months + 3 festival weeks + 3 holidays = 368 standard days,[3][4] defining the Galactic Standard Calendar.[7] However, calendar reforms[8] had eventually changed the Galactic Standard Calendar to a 12-month/368-day calendar.[9][10]

Behind the scenes

Although the standard year was originally defined as a 10-month year in the early Expanded Universe,[4] the keeper of the Holocron continuity database Leland Chee revealed in 2005 that the 10-month calendar system had been dropped for further publications and replaced by a more convenient 12-month calendar.[9] The use of a 12-month/368-day calendar was later confirmed by Sue Rostoni.[10] Thus, the reference book The Essential Atlas featured years of 12 months and months of 30 or 31 days.[11]

Karen Traviss had claimed that she used the 10-month calendar when writing her Republic Commando novels[12][13]—despite the fact that, in said novels, the one-year anniversary of the First Battle of Geonosis occurs approximately twelve months after the battle.[14]

Appearances

Non-canon appearances

Sources

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope
  2. ↑ Galaxy Guide 2: Yavin and Bespin
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition, Revised and Expanded
  5. ↑ WizardsoftheCoast Coruscant: Center of the Empire on Wizards.com (backup link) (original site is defunct)
  6. ↑ Planets of the Galaxy, Volume One
  7. ↑ Lords of the Expanse
  8. ↑ HNNsmall RM&S; Debates Calendar Reform — HoloNet News Vol. 531 #45 (original site is defunct)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 StarWarsDotComBlogsLogoStacked Major Character Birth Years on Keeper of the Holocron — Leland Chee's StarWars.com Blog (original site is defunct)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 StarWarsDotComBlogsLogoStacked Don't Read This!!!!!! on Had a slight weapons malfunction. But everything's perfectly all right now — Sue Rostoni's StarWars.com Blog (original site is defunct)
  11. ↑ The Essential Atlas
  12. ↑ StarWars.com Books, Comics, & Television VIPs on the StarWars.com Message Boards (December 3, 2005) (original site is defunct)
  13. ↑ StarWars.com Books, Comics, & Television VIPs on the StarWars.com Message Boards (January 16, 2006) (original site is defunct)
  14. ↑ Karen Traviss's novel Republic Commando: Hard Contact dates the Battle of Qiilura to three months after the First Battle of Geonosis. Furthermore, the events of the main section of Republic Commando: Triple Zero, which take place nine months after the Battle of Qiilura, span twenty-eight days and begin on the day before the one-year anniversary of the First Battle of Geonosis. Therefore the one-year anniversary of the First Battle of Geonosis must have taken place twelve months after the battle.
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  • Years