Essarian moon calendar

The Essarian moon calendar was adopted as the standard timetable following the abolition of Second Menological calendar by decree of the Godking Mandri. The calendar introduced predictable, prescribed lengths of days, resulting from the astronomer Tyga Essaria's mapping of the pertubations of all 4 moons. The Essarian moon calendar quickly fell into disuse due to its complexity and impracticality in everyday life, and it became a signature embarrassment of the First Godking Court. Within a matter of years, the moon calendar was replaced by the superior Mean Celestial calendar.

Early Understandings
Humankind for millenia had tried to understand variations in daylength to little success. Such one- to three-hour variations were commonly attributed to conflicts among the First Gods, notably the Lover's Quarrel between Yaca, Yamari, and Edergis. The Xepherytes were accused throughout history of offering human sacrifices to Yamari in order to woo her to forgo her turbulent marriage with Yaca and to instead join together with Edergis instead. Ending the Lover's Quarrel would end the "tug-of-war" over night and day, or so they believed. It would not be until the 3rd century that priest-scholars correctly identified the movements of the moons as the primary cause of daylength variance.

Old and New
The Second Menological calendar was divided into a series of 9 months (named for each of the First Gods), with each month comprising 40 days. An additional 10 day intercalarial week occurred at the end of each year. A standard year was therefore was composed of 370 days, with an extra "leap" day occuring once every 9 years incurring a 371-day "leap" year. Daylength was postscribed, with the length of the day recorded post hoc as the time between one sunrise to the next. Lengths of days could vary anywhere between 23 and 26½ hours due to the alignment and approaches of the moons.

Tyga Essaria, an astronomer from Xaq Island, proposed a new calendar which would be predictive of the lengths of all days. Tyga's gravitational calculations for the exact length of any given day were brilliantly precise for the tools and scientific understanding of the era. Such computations promised to be a boon to time management and planning, but instead became a nightmarish chore for recordkeepers. Sundials, which had been a reliable timekeeping device throughout history, no longer were relevant with the new system. Sundial-makers famously smashed all the hourglasses on what is now popularly known as "The Day Time Ended". The new calendar also introduced a lack of uniformity in dating. Rather than have consistent lengths of months, the 370-day year was broken up into an amalgamation of months, half-months, and wandering holidays based on seasonal astronomical conditions. While useful for a select few, the new dating prompted fierce resistance among the general public. Tyga's unparalleled scientific acumen was largely overshadowed by this ill-fated calendar that bore her name. The term "moon calendar" even entered popular vernacular as a derogatory euphemism for a subject of unneccessary complexity. Tyga Essaria lost her status at court and largely retreated from the public eye as more and more people refused to adhere to the new system.

Mean Celestial Calendar
The priest-scholar Gnasus Tysus would refine upon Tyga's techniques with the Mean Celestial calendar, which correctly averaged the length of a day over a 100 year span and standardized daylength. While daylength averages had been recorded extensively prior to this, predictive patterns were usually short-lived cycles or inaccurate guesses. His standardized daylength of 24 hours coupled with the original Second Menological months proved to be a popular and effective replacement for Essaria's moon calendar. The true lengths of a given day were still included due to their intrinsic value, but they were relegated to mere supporting information on calendars on par with phases of the moons and other material worthy of almanacs. The Mean Celestial Calender would be used until 1453.

End of the World Prediction
Tyga Essaria's calendar officially ends in the year 2222, and conspiracy theorists and doomsayers have predicted this to mean that an astronomical event will occur which will end the world. Such theorists have suggested that there will be a collision between two moons, though modern astronomers have no evidence to support such claims.

Cited In
-Luddo Kaufmann
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