Tritonist Calendar
The Triton Calendar (also known as the Tritonist or Tritonian Calendar) is an solar-ecliptical calendar consisting of 12 months in a year of 365 days. Sacred to Tritons and Tritonists, it is also used to accurately predict solar eclipses across the Gapa'hian archipelago as well as Feur Island. Despite having the same year structure, the Tritonist calendar does not align with the Yatan calendar, and in fact it is far more complicated.
The Tritonist calendar employs the Common Era epoch, analogous to 0 CE in the Yatan calendar. As a result, both calendars have the same start date, and have a similar number of years. However, the Tritonist calendar does not define their years using the BCE/CE system, and there is no official rule for dating time before 0 CE at all.
For example, as of the 15th May, 211 CE (15/5/211), it is the 19th Lunième, de la Cinqa Terramiaire, du Saros-Solarium de la 3ème (tricième) ecliptium, (19.2/1.5/3.3).
And in real life, as of the 3rd October, 2021, (3/10/21) it is the 8th Clairium, de l'Onzi Terramiaire, du Saros-Luna de la 27ème (vinto-setième) ecliptium. Note that 27 in Tritonian is 37 in decimal, as Tritonia uses a base-15 numeral system.
Years
The Tritonist calendar has no weeks - only days, months and years. There are 30 days in a month, and 12 months in a year, plus 5 days to keep the year synced with a Yatan year, (a recent addition to the calendar.) The years prefixes occur in groups of three - "ème", "um", "or", and "ic." While these have no meaning, these prefixes define four distinct groups of 3 months, which describe (in order) the Sun, Moon and "Earth", (referring to Theia.) For example, Helième, Flarium, Coronor and Lumèric all refer to the Sun or properties of it, being "Solar," "Flare," "Corona" and "Light" respectively.
| No. | Name | Meaning | English Equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Helième | "Solar" | January |
| 2 | Lunième | "Lunar" | February |
| 3 | Terrième | "Terran" | March |
| 4 | Flarium | "Flare" | April |
| 5 | Clairium | "Moonlight" | May |
| 6 | Oceanum | "Ocean" | June |
| 7 | Coronor | "Corona" | July |
| 8 | Craternor | "Crater" | August |
| 9 | Montenor | "Mountain" | September |
| 10 | Lumèric | "Light" | October |
| 11 | Mariïc | "Tide" | November |
| 12 | Ecliptic | "Eclipse" | December |
Saroi, Eclipta and Date Structure
A saros is the period between two consecutive total eclipses at the same location, irrespective of time. This is equal to a third of an ecliptium, one full calendar cycle. However, as it is a third, this means a saros lasts roughly 18 years, 11 days and 8 hours. As a result, the calendar defines the start of every ecliptium as marked by a total solar eclipse occulting above the sacred Water Temple southwest of Feur Island at the same time as the previous total solar eclipse. This is a period of 54 years and 33 days, and thus is the length of the calendar's cycle. This rule is true for any location on Theia, but the position of the Water Temple is the "zero-mark" for all users of the calendar.
For the calendar, the 11 days and 8 hours are moved to the end of the ecliptium, leaving the saros defined as 18 years. The 8 hours of each saros adds up to a full day, which makes up for deviations in time over the ecliptium, and does not count as an extra day. This means that an ecliptium is NOT 54 years and 34 days. This leaves the ecliptium structured so that:
- There are 3 saroi, each lasting 18 normal years.
- At the end of the 3rd saros, there are 33 complementary days, "the ecliptic days," that bring the calendar cycle to the start of the next total solar eclipse. This includes the 8 hours left over by each saros.
- Each next ecliptium starts at the maximum of the total solar eclipse over the Water Temple, starting the calendar off on the 1st Helième, de l'Onzi Terramiaire, du Saros-Terra.
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Additionally, a saros is split into 6 equal "seitièmes," each lasting 3 years each. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd years in each seitième is called the Terramiaire, the Lunamiaire and the Solamiaire respectively. This defines the current year in the ecliptium. For example, the Cinqa Lunamiaire is the Lunamiaire (second month) of the Cinqa (fifth) seitième. This means it is the 2nd year of the 5th group of 3 years, making it the 14th year of that saros. The year of that ecliptium can be worked out by adding the years of previous saroi. For example, if the Cinqa Lunamiaire was in the third saros of the ecliptium, it would be the 14th year plus 2 lots of 18 years (the two previous saroi,) making it the 50th year of that ecliptium. The three saroi are also designated names, with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd saroi being respectively named the "Saros-Terra", "Saros-Luna" and the "Saros-Solarium."
Using the Short Date
A Yatan short date would be written as "15.05.211" to show it is the 15th of May, 211. Equally, it is common practice to write the Tritonist short date like this as the eclipta are long periods of time, and you would need to have a large enough gap of time to make it necessary to define the ecliptium. Take the date "19th Lunième, de la Cinqa Terramiaire, du Saros-Solarium de la tricième ecliptium." It is the 19th Lunième, which shows us it is the 19th day of the 2nd month; and the Cinqa Terramiaire, which shows us it is the 1st year of the 5th seitième (the 49th year) of that ecliptium. This can be written as 19.2.49. When defining dates formally, one must use the full system. The full short date defines:
- 1.1/1.1/1.1
- The day and the month
- 1.1/1.1/1.1
- The year of the seitième (first, second or third) followed by the seitième itself (1st, 2nd, 3rd.... up to 6th)
- 1.1/1.1/1.1
- ...and ending with the saros (1st, 2nd or 3rd) then the ecliptium.
Therefore, 1.1/1.1/1.1 is defined as the 1st day of the 1st month of the 1st year of the 1st seitième of the first saros of the first ecliptium. Hence, it is necessary to use the full short date when referring to dates outside of the current ecliptium.
