+============================+
| ~1.64 Ms                   |
+============================+

+---------------+
Subject: Language
+---------------+

I have had time to reflect since my introduction on the QEC. I have been
able to reflect more on other posts, and to train myself and my
translation program to write more naturally in this galactic dialect.

+-----------------------+
Subject: A Matter of Time
+-----------------------+

It is difficult to truly grasp the way time dilates on a galactic scale.
I'm sure the relative speed of my ship to whatever solar structure
houses the QEC alone presents a divide that the human mind would find
difficult to understand, let alone the effects of the QEC itself on
time for each message.

I know I am not alone in my confusion. Since my last correspondance, I
have had time to read more of the plethora of messages stored on the
QEC. Some messages seem to be sent in quick succession, while some seem
to have been sent out years apart.

Even if I could know that my time is perception of time is relatively
consistant with an arbitrary reader, there would be no way of knowing
where said observer exists, or if they would use the same standards of
time. From studies of histories stored on our ship, it seems that humans
have struggled to agree on a standard unit for telling time even
pre-diaspora.

I have thus decided that the best way to provide temporal context to my
messages is to use a (hopefully) universal unit: seconds. Even if it is
not used in common speech today, the concept is likely accessible in a
linguistic database, or at least in a computer manual.

That being said, Seconds need to measure from a specific and a shared
reference time. This is harder than it may seem. Seconds from a
specific Earth event would require intact records of Earth, which may
not be universally available (I know that my ship contains very little
verifiable information on Earth- digital data from that era is subject
to degredation). Seconds based on galactic events may quickly become too
large-scale to have much meaning to human life.

The best solution, in the end, was to measure time from when I sent my
first message on the QEC. It will have less meaning for readers when
compared with their own time, but will provide more context when
compared with events aboard my ship.

For example, this communication was sent out ~1.64 Ms after my first
communication. That is 1640000 seconds. More precision will be used if
necessary, but too much precision again approaches irrelivance. For
context, should your culture still use any of the old Terran metrics, an
Earth day was a little under 76001 seconds (if our records of Earth are
to be believed).
