[Dargon-writers-list] Dargon Calendar: Draft1

[Ornoth D.A. Liscomb]

At 1/5/2008 06:02 PM, you wrote:
>All right folks, here's a writer's reference to the calendar. Note 
>that this is a first pass. Please make comments and let me know what you think.

Here's my initial thots, which is probably all you're gonna get, 
since I ship out in 36 hours.

1). Where's Deber 2? Victor!

2). The seasons on both Earth and Dargon (but not Dargon's hidden 
moon, of course) are ruled by astronomical laws that, due to the 
solstices and equinoxes, keep the them very close to the same 
duration. On Earth your seasons are 92/92/90/91 days long, which 
works nicely. But somehow your Dargon calendar has three seasons of 
90 days, and one season of 95. That is astronomically really dubious 
and kinda messes up your measurement of seasons in the Dargon calendar.

3). You made the arbitrary decision to make Janis 1 = January 1. 
There's no concrete reason for that to be so. Another alternative is 
to make Deber 1 = January 1, but that is undesirable, because it 
wreaks a ton of havoc with the seasons, as has been pointed out. But 
both of those are arbitrary.

I think it makes much more sense to align the calendars by the 
solstices and equinoxes, both logically and in the way you present 
them. Thus, Janis 1 = December 20/21. The benefit of this is twofold. 
First, Daf gets to keep the New Year happening on a solstice and a 
season change, which has logical merit. Second, it shifts the entire 
Dargon calendar back (from yours) by ten days, bringing Melrin back 
to May 21-25, which is a tolerable distance from its original 
placement, that being the second or third week in May.

So that'd be my vote as curator of Melrin and all the BY months, 
unless other compelling evidence is presented.

4). Thanks for the footwork, and good job with the presentation.

-o
  http://users.rcn.com/ornoth/