Asynchronology

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It's about Time. [1]

Time is flexible and depends on your job. For example; if your job is maintaining the gravonometric sewage separators on an Earth/Alpha Centauri shuttle that travels at speeds approaching C, when you get back to Earth after a long, hard week you will be considerably younger than your twin brother and in need of a hot shower before going out to see your friends[2] and bragging about your job in space. That's fine from your point of view because you always intended to outlive him anyway, but the problem is that your employer will only pay you for a week's work while your brother will be complaining that he's had to cover several month's rent while you were away. This is because you had neglected to insist on Earth asynchronology in your employment contract. It's your fault for not reading the small print[3][4].

Two lessons can be learned from this;

  • time is never on your side
  • time is not a constant, unless you are waiting for a bus.

Naming convention

Asynchronologies are defined relative to their parent frame of reference which are usually planetary systems or very large arrays which can be considered stationary[5] and will have a two letter designator. Subasynchronologies are therefore defined as being relative to the child of the parent.

δtES = Earth/Sol spatial reference frame

δtSSES = Slab relative to Earth/Sol

δtXXSSES = near lightspeed ex-Slab vehicle XX

Complications

Things get really confusing when the child enters a new spatial framework and decelerates into synchronous orbit, as with the above example of the Earth/Alpha Centauri shuttle which would then cease being in the δtES asynchronology and join the δtAC asynchronology. That's not too much of a problem unless you are still being taxed according to the δtES asynchronology in which case, you will be in serious default and get a hefty fine on your return to Earth. The real problem occurs in the child of a child (as in the XX example above). If Slab were to join a new asynchronology, say a δtHO one, then the δtXXSSES asynchronology would become an δtXXHO asynchronology - but it would be impossible to let the crew of the XX know about the change and they might go charging about the galaxy using the wrong time reference system. This means that the XX child has to become an orphan and establish its own δtXX asynchronology which, most people would agree, is fairly ridiculous.

Footnotes and references

  1. we're not making any apologies for this section, but trying to explain non-synchronous time systems to a mammal who uses a linear time-based organic processor for a brain is like trying to describe string theory to a rational thinker
  2. who in all probability will have forgotten you
  3. or having it read to you, seeing what you do for a living
  4. and what are you doing living with your older twin brother at your age anyway?
  5. of course, nothing is, but we have to start from somewhere