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Safehold International Date Line

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Re: Safehold International Date Line
Post by ryndieum   » Sat Mar 16, 2019 9:04 pm

ryndieum
Lieutenant (Junior Grade)

Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Dec 31, 2012 6:06 pm

Dilandu wrote:
Theemile wrote:
IRL, Set Time zones and items like the date line wern't important until the advent of train lines and the telegraph, when you were attempting to coordinate movements over vast distances and send messages instantaneously around the world.


The Temple have semaphore, don't forget. Not as fast as telegraph, but MUCH faster than trains.

And frankly, considering how thoroughly Archangels done their work on Safehold lore, I doubt that they would miss such thing as establishing the universal time. It would be rather simple - just declare that the date line is on the Temple.


I would assume the exact opposite. Our date line is 180 degrees from the prime meridian. I assume that if the the Archangels set the prime meridian on the Temple, than the dateline would be on the opposite side of Safehold. That would be about Chishold, assuming my estimation is correct.

Again assuming they did something like what we did and avoid the line going through land, I would estimate that it would run through Half Moon Passage and then through the Chisholm Sea. From there it would either go between Zebediah and Corisande or (more likely in my opinion) to the east of Corisande.

As to if it would be needed, I agree with you, Dilandu. Safehold has ALWAYS had knowledge that their world was a sphere and it has been a connected society since the Day of Creation. Every Safeholdian is supposed to go to the Temple and international travel and trade have been around since the beginning. This is NOT 15th or 16th century Earth, even in the technology (Pre-Merlin) is at that level. Even if it doesn't impact their lives on a daily basis (and let's be honest, it doesn't impact our life on a daily basis for the vast majority of us), I believe that it probably would need to exist.

Edit: Plus, if we assume that the map RFC left on his page is part of the canon, it shows an equator. In addition, the books talk about the equator quite a bit. That would indicate that the population understands the importance of that line. It is not too much of a stretch to get to the prime meridian and it's converse, the date line.
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Re: Safehold International Date Line
Post by Keith_w   » Sun Mar 17, 2019 8:23 am

Keith_w
Commodore

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Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2012 12:10 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada

Once you start using longitude and latitude, you need standard time to determine location. At least you need to know the time at your 0 point. For the British, this was the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.
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A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
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Re: Safehold International Date Line
Post by NHBL   » Wed Jun 05, 2019 1:02 pm

NHBL
Lieutenant (Junior Grade)

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You only need the time at your reference point if your clocks are accurate enough. Accurate clocks are vital fr navigation going east-west, so Merlin would have introduced them if need be, IMVHO. Since he didn't, clocks accurate enough for navigation probably already exist.

A standard time will become needed for the railroads--a few head-on collisions will drive that home! (Especially if a powder train is involved.)

Some canals are described as being quite narrow, so time already needs to be precise enough for boats to meet where there's wide spots. (The Holy Langorne canal comes to mind.) If locks were the only limiting factor, they could have been widened.
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Re: Safehold International Date Line
Post by Dilandu   » Wed Jun 05, 2019 4:03 pm

Dilandu
Admiral

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Location: Russia

NHBL wrote:You only need the time at your reference point if your clocks are accurate enough. Accurate clocks are vital fr navigation going east-west, so Merlin would have introduced them if need be, IMVHO. Since he didn't, clocks accurate enough for navigation probably already exist.

A standard time will become needed for the railroads--a few head-on collisions will drive that home! (Especially if a powder train is involved.)

Some canals are described as being quite narrow, so time already needs to be precise enough for boats to meet where there's wide spots. (The Holy Langorne canal comes to mind.) If locks were the only limiting factor, they could have been widened.


And, as I mentioned above - semaphore. Which allows the quick data exchange across the continent. Which made quite a lot of economical & other situations (like military ones) depend of universal time.
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Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

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Re: Safehold International Date Line
Post by Theemile   » Wed Jun 05, 2019 4:30 pm

Theemile
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Location: All over the Place - Now Serving Dublin, OH

NHBL wrote:You only need the time at your reference point if your clocks are accurate enough. Accurate clocks are vital fr navigation going east-west, so Merlin would have introduced them if need be, IMVHO. Since he didn't, clocks accurate enough for navigation probably already exist.

A standard time will become needed for the railroads--a few head-on collisions will drive that home! (Especially if a powder train is involved.)

Some canals are described as being quite narrow, so time already needs to be precise enough for boats to meet where there's wide spots. (The Holy Langorne canal comes to mind.) If locks were the only limiting factor, they could have been widened.


IRL, clocks didn't matter on most canals. Turn abouts were positioned every mile or 2 to allow for passing, and canal boats only moved at 2-4 miles an hour - the speed of the walking oxen, mules or horses. You usually could see at least a quarter mile or so ahead in the worst conditions, giving enough time to avoid a collision, and reverse course back down the canal to a wide point. On the Miami-Erie, traffic was usually only a handful of boats passing a town each day in each direction, so tight coordination was not necessary.
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RFC said "refitting a Beowulfan SD to Manticoran standards would be just as difficult as refitting a standard SLN SD to those standards. In other words, it would be cheaper and faster to build new ships."
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